 |
|||
Faculty
Recasting The Mahabharata |
Students
Girls (and boys) on film |
Academics
Cougars learn to write right at CLASS |
Alumni
Do you know this alumna? Meet the bane of bass |
Discovery
Antel and Powell on CLASS research |
You Can HelpSupport your college by putting your money where our minds are. |
Around CLASS and Campus Watch This! |
|
We Want To Hear From You! |
|||
| Send us your comments or questions. |
|||
In Memoriam: William (Bill) Moffit 1925-2008
William C. (Bill) Moffit (5/13/1925 – 3/5/2008), renowned marching band director, passed away March 5 in Jacksonville, FL. The Rebecca and John J. Moores School of Music hosted a service of remembrance on March 10 in front of the Burdette Keeland Jr. Design Exploration Center. The marching band performed and featured Moffit’s music and arrangements. Moffit was UH’s marching band leader from 1969 to 1980. He pioneered many aspects of the marching bands and halftime shows enjoyed today by fans across the country. In the 1970s, he successfully adapted well-known pop hits into band arrangements, such as The Horse. Known as Sound Power, these numbers added a contemporary feel to college football and basketball games. Another Moffit innovation was “Patterns of Motion,” marching drill techniques that allowed band directors to coordinate field routines more quickly and easily. As a faculty member, Moffit was nationally recognized as a music arranger. Bands from across the United States and around the world still play music from his Sound Power series. In honor to his contributions to the university, the UH Band Alumni Association and the Moores School of Music created the William C. Moffit Chair, an endowed professorship. The Band Department put together a special online tribute. Faculty
Recasting The MahabharataChitra Divakaruni, a professor in the Department of English and Creative Writing program, has recast the Indian epic poem, The Mahabharata, said to be the world’s longest poem, coming in at 220,000 lines and written around 900 BC. The Los Angeles Times calls her novel, The Palace of Illusions (Doubleday, 360 pgs.), “as sprawling and bright a gem as the Hope Diamond, a mythical tale brimming with warriors, magic and treachery (and its brother, deceit).” As of the second week of March, her book ranked #2 on Amazon’s list of Fairy Tales. Divakaruni, an award-winning poet and novelist, was born in India. Her short story collection, Arranged Marriage, received the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Prize for Fiction, the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award for Fiction, and an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. She has written four best selling novels: The Mistress of Spices (chosen by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the best 100 books of the 20th century), Sister of My Heart, Vine of Desire, and Queen of Dreams. She also wrote the short story collection, The Unknown Errors of Our Lives, and two children's novels, Neela: Victory Song and The Conch Bearer. Among her awards are two PEN Fiction awards, two Pushcart Prizes, a Gerbode Foundation award, and an Allen Ginsberg poetry prize. Divakaruni's work has been translated into 13 languages, including Hebrew, Dutch and Japanese. 
School of Communication faculty and students received special recognitions at the Houston American Advertising Awards (Addy) Banquet on Feb. 10. Lecturer Bob Culpepper received the annual Silver Medal, given for lifetime achievement. He also received a Hall of Fame trophy for his “Luv Ya Blue” campaign for the Houston Oilers, which he developed when he owned the Houston advertising firm Culpepper and Associates. His Advertising Applications class received a Silver Addy and two Citations of Excellence for their recruitment campaign for the Central Intelligence Agency. Recent graduate Nathan Hoang was the Creative Director. Bill Large received two Silver Medals and three Citations of Excellence as the writing half of the collaboration team that created the outdoor billboard and radio campaign for the Houston Food Bank that also includes a new logo and the tagline, "Filling pantries. Filling lives." Deborah Bridges (’94 Professional Writing), Instructional Professor in the School of Communication, contributed to Cambridge Scholars Publishing text, From Hip-Hop to Hyperlinks: Teaching about Culture in the Composition Classroom, published March 1. Her chapter is: Using Digital Storytelling to Examine Culture and Intercultural Communication.
Rudy Cravens, an adjunct faculty member in the Acting Department of the School of Theatre and Dance, who appears in numerous films and television programs, including Ray; RoboCop 2, Friday Night Lights; Texas; Streets of Laredo; Walker, Texas Ranger; The Alamao; and Into the West, also has the role as the gun store clerk in the multi-award-winning No Country for Old Men. Read what Cravens has to say about the film. 
Scott Imberman, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics, received the American Education Finance Association New Scholars Award for doctoral scholars. 
Julie Fix (’72 Journalism), Instructional Professor in the School of Communication, was recognized by the Texas Public Relations Association at the organization’s annual Silver Spur/Best of Texas Awards Banquet March 2 for a “decade of care and supervision” of the association’s annual statewide awards competition. She also was a co-presenter of a student-oriented professional development session, “How to Get Your Big PR Break and Networking 101,” presented by the Public Relations Foundation of Texas. Fix was re-elected chairman of the foundation during the conference. 
Mat Johnson, an Assistant Professor in the Creative Writing program, combines words with pictures in his new graphic novel that depicts African-American resistance during the Jim Crow days of the 1930s. As of the second week of March, Incognegro (Vertigo, 136 pgs.) sat at the #1 spot on Amazon’s Graphic Novels/Mystery list. Johnson was born and raised in Philadelphia. His first novel, Drop, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. His second novel, Hunting in Harlem, won the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. From Johnson’s web site, Niggerati, comes his personal description of Incognegro: This is the next movement. After the success of Papa Midnite, I pitched the story of a mystery based around a Walter White type brother who pretends to be caucasian to investigate black lynchings in the American deep south. They went for it, and bought the movie rights as well. The gifted Warren Pleece is illustrating . . . My cousin Ben Karp and I used to talk about going “incognegro” growing up, or passing, and I always joked that Incognegro would be my breakthrough bestseller (some people think I look like a caucasian, but I am a biracial African American). The graphic form let me tell the tale in an interesting way without doing a stupid commercially driven novel. 
Joe Leydon (’07 MA), lecturer in the School of Communication, will lead panel discussions and host an on-stage Q&A with legendary actress Patricia O'Neal during the Nashville Film Festival, April 17-24. Leydon is an award-winning film critic and historian. He is a critic and correspondent for Variety, the "show business bible," and a contributing writer for MovieMaker magazine, he is the author of Joe Leydon's Guide to Essential Movies You Must See (Michael Wiese Productions), and host of the web site The Moving Picture Show. 
Richard Murray, the Bob Lanier Endowed Chair in Urban Public Policy in the Department of Political Science, and the founder and former director of the Center for Public Policy, writes about the presidential primaries for KTRK Channel 13. Members also elected him to a two-year term as the co-chair for the theatre history area of the conference. Find out more faculty news on the CLASS News and Events page. Students
Dissonance: The University of Houston Photo/Digital Senior ExhibitionThe public has a great opportunity to view some of the amazing works from students in the School of Art and the Photography/Digital Media program. Thanks to the Houston Arts Alliance and Fotofest, you can see the works of 18 senior photography students and of Associate Professor Delilah Montoya (San Sebastiana: An Installation by Delilah Montoya) at Space125Gallery, 3201 Allen Parkway, through April 17. Take a visual tour of Dissonance: The University of Houston Photo/Digital Senior Exhibition, and read about it in a story in The Daily Cougar 
Graphic Communications Students Show Flair For Fashion CLASS alumnus Dylan Moore (’94 Graphic Communication) was tired of formulaic fashion designs dominating the marketplace, so in 2006, he decided to create his own clothing line. His own tastes were steeped in retroware that resembled attire found in yesteryear’s lounges, rock clubs and pool halls. With that, he created contemporary designs based on classic aspects of American culture and founded Tupelo Grease Co. Grateful to the school that helped him develop as a designer, Moore recently offered Graphic Communications students in the School of Art a chance to have their designs placed on attire produced by his company. Groups of juniors and seniors collaborated on T-shirt designs for a spring line that follows the theme of the “seven deadly sins.” The shirts will be available this spring, and proceeds from these creations will be donated to the graphic communications program. The designs for the “sin” series feature text depicting both the sin and corresponding virtue (Sloth – Action; Gluttony – Satisfaction), as well as illustrations over a background resembling “Rorschach” inkblot images. “Having the experience to work with an outside designer helped me to understand what it is like to work with a company during the production stage of a project,” said senior graphic communication student Kelly Musebeck, who assisted with the project. The graphic communications program prepares student designers through a curriculum focused on graphic design methodology, research and theory. It offers both bachelor of fine arts and master of fine arts degrees.
School of Communication students enrolled in Prof. Michael Berryhill’s Opinion Writing and Social Issues in Journalism class have a blog on the Fox 26 web site.
School of Communication students received special recognitions at the Houston American Advertising Awards (Addy) Banquet on Feb. 10. Lecturer Bob Culpepper’s Advertising Applications class received a Silver Addy and two Citations of Excellence for their recruitment campaign for the Central Intelligence Agency. 
Students in Kim Paisley’s Public Relations Campaigns class in the School of Communication, including Justin V. Concepcion, Luis Cossio, Nicole Daaboul, Sabrina Dreyer, Jessica Overton, and Kelly Wilson, won a Student Competition Silver Spur Award from the Texas Public Relations Association for the public relations campaign they developed as a class assignment. Their entry, Full Hearts Filling Empty Bowls, was described as “a nicely researched effort to help the Houston Food Bank (HFB) with the overall goal to raise hunger awareness. The team’s campaign was the ‘Empty Bowls’ event . . . They were innovative - using the Houston Chronicle’s artbeat blog, MySpace and Facebook.”
Second-year Psychology graduate student Ari Malka received the Leslie W. Joyce and Paul W. Thayer Graduate Fellowship in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Inc. Ari received the award for her work with Assistant Professor Christiane Spitzmüller on Prof. Spitzmüller’s project on training and selection for ExxonMobil. The $10,000 fellowship goes to a student committed to conducting applied research in the field of training and development.
Three CLASS students play for the defending Conference USA softball team, ranked 13th in the nation.
Barbie Love, a senior, is an English major from Manvel, Texas.
Katy Beth Sherman, a freshman, is a Psychology major from Waller, Texas.
And Laurie Wagner, a junior, is a Communications/Journalism major from Houston Congratulations to Coach Kyla Holas and the entire Cougar softball team! Academics
Writing CenterWriting is thinking. It is an indispensable activity for every discipline conducting research within a university setting and an essential component of a university education. Ongoing instruction in writing helps to initiate students into the changing intellectual demands of university life and introduces them to the complexities of their chosen disciplines and professions. Because writing provides the tools to discover and articulate solutions to intellectual problems, improved writing remains a continual goal of university education. To address these concerns, the mission of the University of Houston Writing Center includes the following activities: Assessment: developing effective means of evaluating student and institutional writing needs that promote curricular innovation and provide informative directions for both students and teacher. Writing Instruction: providing instruction in writing that meets the diverse needs of a student population at undergraduate, graduate, and professional level. Curricular Innovation: promoting the creation of new writing curricula to meet changing student and disciplinary needs, reexamining present curricula to respond to new practices in the field of writing instruction. Community Outreach: establishing outreach programs and partnerships that make available the results of the Center's inquiries and activities in the teaching of writing and foster collaboration with the region's educational and professional communities. Professional Development: encouraging the ongoing professional development of faculty and staff across the full spectrum of disciplines. Research in the Teaching of Writing: fostering the creation and dissemination of new knowledge about the teaching of writing in a large public institution serving an urban, multi-ethnic, multilingual community. Visit the UH Writing Center web site to learn more.
Master of Arts 
Dean Antel approved a Summer Master of Arts for Theatre Educators. This new program provides an affordable and convenient path for busy Theatre Arts Educators to complete a Master of Arts in three Summer sessions, lasting five weeks, beginning June 30. Visit the School of Theatre and Dance web site for more information. Alumni
Meet the bane of bassJudy Wong, who received a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Houston, hooked her third fishing championship in February by winning the Women’s Bassmaster Tour Classic. The Many, LA, resident and longtime fishing guide added to her 2001 and 2002 titles by reeling in a 26 pounds, 10 ounces beauty. Judy just about retired back in 2001 after a dozen years of fishing competitions. Watch a YouTube video of one of the nation’s top anglers.
Listen to her 2006 interview conducted at KUHF, Houston Public Radio. Crystal Jackson (’00 Creative Writing) founded the theatre cooperative Six of One Productions. The folks at the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize selected her play, Embracing the New World Order, as one of five plays for inclusion in a project saluting the accomplishments of female playwrights in Houston. Members of the city’s professional acting community presented the short works as dramatic readings on March 9 at the Alley Theatre’s Neuhaus Stage. It was part of the commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Theatres from Billings, Mont., to Houston, to New York City, have produced Crystal’s plays. Her one-act Please Remove This Stuffed Animal From My Head received the People’s Choice and Best Production awards from Venture Theatre. It was produced in the EstroGenius festival in New York City. 
Erik Barajas (’98 Radio and Television) will anchor Houston’s KTRK Channel 13's 4 p.m. newscast beginning in April. Erik, who grew up in Houston, got his first television news gig as a reporter/photographer in Corpus Christi. Six months later he was anchoring the weekend news, and six months after that he was anchoring and producing the 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts. He then went to Austin, and then on to San Antonio, before accepting the position here in Houston. 
Julian Schnabel (’73 Art), artist, screenwriter, recipient of the Best Director Award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, and featured alumnus in the December 2007 edition of Graffit-e, did not receive the award for Achievement in Directing (aka Best Director) from the Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka Oscars) for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. He did take home some other awards for the film, though: Best Director and Best Foreign Language film from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (aka Golden Globe Awards); Best Film Not In the English Language from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts; and Best Director from the Independent Spirit Awards. Cougar Saltwater Open
| |||
Divya Murthy (’00 BFA) is one of three Houstonians featured in the Galveston Arts Center exhibitions focusing on the “Transformations” theme. Diva Murthy: The Homeland Project features large-scale color panoramic photographs that document the development, destruction, constructions, and evolution of her neighborhood. Murthy was born in Bangalore, India, but grew up in Houston. She received a BFA from the University of Houston in 2000, and her MFA from the School of The Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston in 2006. The Williams Tower Gallery and the Houston Center for Photography have exhibited her work. She has also shown work in Miami, New York City, Baltimore and Boston. 
CLASS: the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences | 402 Agnes Arnold Hall | (713)743-4002 | (713)743-2990 fax
