Spring Film Series starts Wednesday at Art Museum

“Fear and Trembling,” a French and Japanese film, opens the 2008 SDSU Film Series at the South Dakota Art Museum auditorium Wednesday, Feb. 6 at 7 p.m.

The film, in French and Japanese with English subtitles, tells the story of a young Belgian woman who arrives in Japan to work as a translator for a giant corporation.

Based on an autobiographical novel, the film tells the tale of one unfamiliar with practices found in the Japanese workplace. The unaccustomed woman commits a series of cultural missteps that result in a never-ending string of demotions, each more humiliating than the last.

The SDSU Film Society, under advising from assistant professor Jeff Heinle, curates the films through support from the William and Harriet Gould Foundation, Margaret Denton, the Women’s Giving Circle, South Dakota Art Museum and the SDSU Student Association.

Films will be shown through April each Wednesday at the Art Museum. An additional film will show Thursday, March 27.

A dreamy, young Belgian woman experiences difficulty in a Japanese workplace filled with unfamiliar, cultural practices in “Fear and Trembling.”

Student produced TV program starts Tuesday

Three new episodes of the Pursuits TV program will air on Mediacom, Channel 2, beginning Feb. 5.

The 30-minute episodes feature student-hosted and directed TV-studio interviews about graduate student research. Hosts and directors switch with episodes.

The production is developed in the spirit of the “Morrill Act” with the outreach mission to inform about research and scholarship in a variety of disciplines.

Pursuits - Fall 2007, Episode #1
Air dates: Feb. 5, 7 & 9
Time: 9 a.m., 11 a.m., 7 p.m., 11 p.m.

Hosts and Guests: Lydia Farber interviews Kathleen Grode (English) about her thesis, ”From Crucifixes to Chainsaws: the Story of Transition from English Literature to Modern Horror.”

Zeke Richter interviews Matt Pajle (Water Management) about automated water-read systems in rural areas.

Nicole Townswick discusses the possible affect that ethanol production will have on cropland with Jordan Graesser (Geography).

Jordanne Blair interviews Ryan Brunner (Agricultural Economics) about the economic feasibility of renewable fuels with a focus on ethanol.

Kellyn Ferrell interviews Sam Dwire (Plant Science) about phenotype plasticity in grass.

Directors: Char Luze, Carl Deardoff, Cody Brown, Dan Nelson, and Jenna Mann.

Organic dairy workshop in Marshall

The Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota will host an organic dairy workshop Feb. 5 from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Southwest/West Central Service Cooperatives Center in Marshall, Minn.

The workshop “Organic Dairy 101: A Workshop for Dairy Support Professionals” will include a presentation on the overview of an organic dairy operation, a virtual tour and insights from organic dairy producers, and question-and-answer periods.

South Dakota Cooperative Extension Dairy Specialist Alvaro Garcia will speak at the event. He will present information on livestock health in organic systems along with pasture and grazing information. Information on soils and fertility, nutrition and cropping, and economics and farm business management also will be presented.

The Minnesota and Wisconsin Departments of Agriculture, North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture Research, and the Education Professional Development Program are sponsoring the event.

To register, visit www.sfa-mn.org or contact Anne Borgendale, 226-6318. Cost of the workshop is $35.

State In-service music conference starts Thursday

The annual South Dakota in-service music conference Feb. 7-9 features over 1,000 elementary, middle school, high school and university music groups and 250 directors as well as the national Music Educators National Conference (MENC) president at South Dakota State University's Volstorff Ballroom and Performing Arts Center.

Lynn Brinckmeyer, national MENC president from Texas State University, will deliver a keynote address Feb. 8 at 9:45 a.m. in the Volstorff Ballroom West of The Union.

Performances during the conference include the SDSU Women’s Chorus and the High School Festival of Women’s Voices Thursday, Feb. 7 at 7:30 p.m. in Larson Concert Hall of the Performing Arts Center.

The SDSU Symphonic Band with Assistant Professor Aaron Ragsdale in percussion solo will give a concert Friday, Feb. 8 at 8 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center.

In addition to the evening concerts, student groups will perform during clinics and workshops designed to enhance teacher and musician knowledge.

The Symphonic Band, made up of 50 auditioned members, performs Friday at 8 p.m.

Bundt cakes focus of first Ag Museum Brown Bag lectures

“Bundt Cake Bliss,” a look at the Midwestern dessert delicacy with author Susanna Short, will kick off the South Dakota Agricultural Heritage Museum’s Brown Bag Lecture Series Feb. 12 at Noon.

Caterer and author Short brings back the uniquely formed, ring-shaped cakes with kitchen-tested recipes and stories.

The Bundt pan was created in 1950 by H. David Dalquist for his Minnesota company, Nordic Ware.

The Hadassah Society’s Minneapolis chapter wanted a pan to make kuglehof, a German cake served at a bund, or gathering, so they asked Dalquist and his wife Dorothy if their company could make one.

The pan took off in popularity in 1966 after a Bundt cake won a Pillsbury-sponsored baking contest. When the contest winner was announced, Pillsbury received over 200,000 requests to find out where a pan needed to make a Tunnel of Fudge cake could be purchased.

Since it was introduced, nearly 60 million Bundt pans have been sold by Nordic Ware that markets its own line of Gourmet Bundt Cake Mixes.

Short will share some of its history in her talk and will sign books with recipes for such favorites as Quick Orange Kiss and the 1966 winning Tunnel of Fudge recipe as well as fanciful creations like Green Chili Cornbread and Mexican Hot Chocolate mini-bundts. Books sell at the museum for $16.95 plus tax.

“Bundt Cake Bliss: Delicious Desserts from Midwest Kitchens” will be signed by author after her talk at the Agricultural Heritage Museum at Noon, Feb. 12.

TRiO Student Support Services to host workshop on managing money

The workshop, “Money Matters: Education to help you manage your money more effectively,” is continuing at The Union.

The second session about credit basics takes place Feb. 12 at 4 p.m. in SSU Room 103 or Feb. 13 at 12 noon. The first session was held in January.

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.

Teaching and Technology Expo at Union

Instructional Design Services and the Teaching Learning Center have announced that the Teaching and Technology Expo will be held Feb. 20-21 at The Union in Room 167.

Sponsored by Academic Affairs and Chief Information Technology Office, the expo will consist of twelve 50-minute sessions running concurrently. Refreshments will be provided.

All faculty are invited to participate in the event. It will be an opportunity to learn and exchange ideas on how in-classroom and online teaching can be enhanced through the use of various teaching pedagogies and the use of technology. Registration is available at http://ids.sdstate.edu/Training/schedule.cfm?Date=%7Bts%20%272008%2D02%2D01%2000%3A00%3A00%27%7D.

In addition, new technologies will be available for faculty to check out first hand and a number of drawings will be held. Prizes include: an 80G iPod, SDSU-logo laptop backpacks, and CITO-logo USB flash drives.

For details, contact 688-6312 (http://ids.sdstate.edu/about/expo/) or 688-6413 (http://tlc.sdstate.edu).

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

Sixteen senior nursing students from the SDSU West River Nursing Program in Rapid City will find why Texas tourism bills itself as “a whole other country.”

They will travel to the Rio Grande Valley in the tip of Texas to find out how residents there live.

Along the U.S. side of the Texas-Mexico border live 400,000 people in 2,300 “colonias,” or unincorporated neighborhoods, roughly half the population of the entire state of South Dakota.

The students won’t find many similarities with South Dakota in the poor, Spanish-speaking neighborhoods.

Dilapidated homes, a lack of potable water, sewer and drainage systems and floodplain locations set up colonias for outbreaks of hepatitis A, salmonellosis, dysentery and cholera.

Those health-care problems go unreported and untreated because of a shortage of primary-care providers; long distances to health-care facilities; a fear of losing wages for time spent away from work; inconvenient health-care facility hours; a lack of awareness of available health-care programs and no health insurance.

Teaming with students from South Texas College and staff from both schools, the SDSU group will perform health screenings in four colonias in the McAllen and Mission areas, according to SDSU Instructor Catherine Calhoon who is coordinating the trip with SDSU Associate Professor Linda Kropenkse.

Children and adults will be screened for diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

In addition, students will spend one day across the border in Reynosa talking to Mexican officials about working conditions and health care in Reynosa as well as touring their facilities.

The students will also work with “promotores” who live in the colonias to help attract the residents to the health screenings conducted through “Mission on the Move,” a 35-foot recreational vehicle converted to a mobile screening and education unit. The vehicle used is a project of the Presbyterian Church USA and housed in Louisville, Ky.

SDSU students must foot the $350 bill for plane fare to San Antonio.

Their clinical student fee covers the cost of food, van transportation from San Antonio to McAllen and lodging, which will be in home parks at a converted recreational vehicle park in Mission.

Students also will be required to choose a social justice issue based on their experience.

Like their 27 senior classmates remaining in South Dakota and doing community health assessments in places like Hill City and New Underwood, students must write a letter to a governmental official on a social justice topic of their choosing.

Trips back to Texas by future nursing classes are possible, Calhoon said.

SDSU nursing students will work from a “Mission on the Move” van to take health risk assessments similar to this one in Tucson, Ariz.

Jearl Walker, professor of physics at Cleveland State University and author of
"The Flying Circus of Physics", will astound and amaze listeners Thursday, Feb. 7 in Rotunda, Room D, at 7 p.m.

Walker’s book, now in a revised edition, has been translated into 11 languages and supplies questions and answers to curiosities found in the everyday world.

Stunts, like having a student stand on a bed-of-nails on his chest, sticking his fingers in molten lead, walking on hot coals, or balancing a spoon on his nose showed physics teachers and PBS television audiences the real-life relevancy of physics.

Walker has authored 152 articles for “The Amateur Scientist” section of “Scientific American” on such topics as the physics of judo to the physics of béarnaise sauce and lemon meringue pies.

Professor Jearl Walker demonstrates physics principles found in the everyday world.

Nineteen students in SDSU’s West River Nursing Program started back to classes in mid-January feeling a little extra chipper.

Their lifted spirits can be tied to the John T. Vucurevich Foundation of Rapid City, which approved $60,000 for scholarships, enough to fund 20 awards of $1,000 each for the next three semesters. The first scholarships were awarded this Spring 2008.

Barbara Hobbs, head of SDSU West River Nursing, said the program was “in need of a highly visible recruitment tool to attract the best students. The John T. Vucurevich Foundation Scholarships are the answer to attracting more students to the baccalaureate SDSU nursing pro
-gram.”

The Black Hills region also has a need for more baccalaureate-prepared nurses.

However, many students opt for a two-year associate’s degree because of the cost, Hobbs said. The John T. Vucurevich Foundation Scholarships help take that factor out of the equation.

Scholarship recipients must hold a grade point average of 3.0 or better, be an in-state student, not be eligible to receive any federal grant, and be taking at least 12 credits.

The foundation was created by banker John T. Vucurevich (1912-2005) to “make a piece of the world a brighter place.” This marks the first gift by the 19-year-old foundation to SDSU.

Barbara Hobbs heads the SDSU West River nursing department at offices at 1011 Eleventh Street in Rapid City.

South Dakota Board of Regents member James Hansen is still receiving mail at his old address at 404 Yucca Drive. All mail should be sent to 216 N. Pierce, Pierre, S.D., 57501.

For more information, contact Mary Turman, BOR administrative assistant, 773-3455.

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

Position Announcements

The Board of Regents has implemented PeopleAdmin for SDSU and all institutions within the BOR system. Vacancies are posted on the shared, Online Employment System. Applications are accepted electronically.

For more information regarding current SDSU job postings and the on-line employment process, visit http://yourfuture.sdbor.edu.