Jayne Fleener
LSU'S Biweekly Newsletter for Faculty & Staff
August 6, 2004 |
VOL. 20, NO. 5 |
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| Jayne Fleener |
Provost Risa Palm announced that Jayne Fleener from the University of Oklahoma has been named dean of LSU’s College of Education. Her appointment began Aug. 1.
“We are excited about Jayne Fleener joining the LSU community as the new dean of the College of Education,” Palm said. “Jayne brings great energy and experience to LSU. There is no doubt that she will help shepherd the College of Education’s continued progress on all fronts.”
Since 1999, Fleener has been the associate dean for Research & Graduate Studies in OU’s College of Education. During her tenure, grant expenditures tripled in five years and graduate student scholarships quadrupled. One of her major accomplishments at OU was to develop a center to support faculty and graduate student research and grant activities, increasing the college’s outreach through national publications and grants. Many of her accomplishments were a result of collaborations and relationships nurtured with OU’s Colleges of Engineering and Continuing Education.
“Working collaboratively across campus is key to successfully competing for external support and receiving national attention,” Fleener said.
Fleener received a bachelor’s in philosophy from Indiana University at Bloomington before getting master’s degrees in philosophy and mathematics at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. While at UNC she also earned her Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction.
She has taught mathematics and computer science at the pre-collegiate level in North Carolina and has more than 40 national and international publications, including her recent books “Curriculum Dynamics: Recreating Heart and Chaos” and “Complexity, Curriculum, and Culture: A Conver-sation.”
“There are many similarities between OU and LSU – besides great athletic programs,” said Fleener. “I am looking forward to working within the college and across campus to articulate and enact a flagship agenda for the College of Education. The outstanding faculty, staff, students and administration at LSU have impressed me and I see wonderful things in the future for LSU.”
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| Bankston |
Col. Kenneth E. Bankston has assumed the role of Commander of LSU’s Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps Detachment 310. He is the senior Air Force officer on campus with the responsibilities of Detachment Commander, Military Corps Commander – a position from which Bankston will oversee both the Air Force and Army ROTC programs at LSU – and Chairman of the Department of Aerospace Studies with the rank of Professor.
Bankston comes to LSU after serving two years as commander of the 37th Mission Support Group at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.
Bankston earned his bachelor’s degree in history from Mississippi State University, as well as a master’s in management from Weber University and a master’s in international studies from Air War College.
In May of 1978, he was promoted to second lieutenant, and a year later, made first lieutenant. In April of 1982, he was promoted to captain and after little more than seven years, was promoted to major. In July of 1989, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and finally, in 2002, was made a colonel.
Bankston is a master navigator with more than 2,800 flying hours in the C-130 aircraft, including combat missions in Grenada and Iraq. His military awards and decorations include the Legion of Merit, Defense Superior Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal with 3 oak leaf clusters, Air Force Commendation Medal, Humanitarian Service Medal with two devices and the Kuwait Liberation Medal.
LSU Assistant Professor Srinath Ekkad has been selected as the first recipient of the 2004 Bergles-Rohsenow Young Investigator Award in Heat Transfer for outstanding contributions to the field. The award is given to an engineer who is under the age of 36 and has received his doctorate or an equivalent engineering degree.
Heat transfer is the study of thermal energy transport from hot to cold media and it is a common occurrence in daily life. Ekkad’s research focuses on the basics of enhancing or decreasing the heat transfer between objects to improve designs of various items which affect everyday life, from refrigerators to aircraft engines.
Ekkad’s main contributions to the study of heat transfer have been to understand and improve gas turbine engine systems by studying basic designs and coming up with new designs to enhance their performance.
Ekkad is an assistant professor at LSU and has just been approved for tenure. He will be promoted to associate professor starting this fall. He also serves as the undergraduate program coordinator for the mechanical engineering department and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers student section adviser at LSU.
Before coming to the university, Ekkad was a senior project engineer at Rolls Royce in Indianapolis for two years, working in the turbine hot gas path section design group.
He earned his doctorate at Texas A&M University in 1995 and his master’s at Arizona State University in 1991. He received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering in 1989 from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in Hyderabad, India.
Ekkad will receive a plaque, $1,000 honorarium, bronze medal and certificate at a formal presentation at the Heat Transfer Dinner during the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, Nov. 13-19 in Anaheim, Calif.
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The LSU Union Great Performances Theater Series succeeds once again in bringing to LSU the best in theater, music and comedy.
This year’s performances include: “Chicago City Limits: America Idles,” “Fosse,” “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” “Late Nite Catechism II: Sometimes We Feel Guilty Because We ARE Guilty” and bonus show “RENT.”
Series ticket prices for the four shows range from $118-$134 for the general public, $101-$118 for Union members, faculty and staff and $45-$60 for students. The bonus show, “RENT,” may be added for $15-$44. A limited number of series tickets will be sold and can be charged to MasterCard, Visa or American Express.
Series tickets may be purchased only through the LSU Union Box Office at 225-578-5128. Box office hours are 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Series subscribers also save 15 percent off individual ticket prices and have a choice of the best seats in the house.
The series begins Friday, Oct. 1, at 8 p.m., with “Chicago City Limits: America Idles.” Pop culture comes under the microscope as Chicago City Limits lampoons the people and places who fill the airways, jetways and malaise of the world around us. Hailed as “hysterical and unpredictable” by the New York Times, Chicago City Limits has been performing its unique style of comedy and improvisational theater for two decades.
The impressive list of guest artists who have improvised with Chicago City Limits over the years include stars such as Paul Reiser, Robin Williams, Brett Butler and Bill Irwin. Dozens of TV appearances include “The Today Show,” Comedy Central, HBO, CNN and CNBC.
Director Paul Zuckerman defines improvisation as “comedy without a net.” Chicago City Limits creates a one-of-a-kind theatrical experience by taking suggestions from audience members and crafting scenes – everything from mini-musicals to game shows – on the spot. The result is an evening of hilarious, sidesplitting humor. “Fosse,” the Tony Award-winning smash hit musical, begins Friday, Nov. 5, at 8 p.m.
“Fosse” is a journey in song and dance through the extraordinary career of the legendary dancer, choreographer and director Bob Fosse. Fosse’s sexy style and unique vision revolutionized musical theater with the Broadway hits “Sweet Charity,” “Chicago,” “Dancin’” and the films “Cabaret” and “All That Jazz.”
Long-time Fosse stars Gwen Verdon and Ann Reinking came together to recreate his groundbreaking work, and an extraordinarily talented cast brings Broadway’s all-time best choreography to life.
“Fosse” includes rarely seen dance and musical numbers from the choreographer’s earliest works, and many numbers that have never before been seen on stage. The production also showcases classic Fosse dance numbers like “Steam Heat,” “Big Spender,” Bye Bye Blackbird,” “Dancin’ Man” and “Sing, Sing, Sing.”
Sunday, Jan. 23, at 8 p.m., the greatest hits of the 1950s and 1960s are on the menu at “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” a rockin’ party of a show. “Jailhouse Rock,” “Stand by Me,” “Yakety Yak,” “Hound Dog” and more are some of the electrifying creations of legendary songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller – the Rodgers and Hammerstein of rock n’ roll.
“Smokey Joe’s Cafe” harnesses the power of this music that changed the world in a raucous night of musical theater that broke records and ran nearly five years on Broadway. In an idealized ‘50s setting, the classic themes of love won, lost and imagined blend with hilarious set pieces and slice-of-life emotions.
What began as a glimmer of an idea in 1993, has grown into the theatrical phenomenon “Late Nite Catechism,” Saturday, April 2, at 8 p.m.
This play about a nun who is handed the reigns of an adult catechism class ran in 156 U.S. cities with 38,000 performances. Now it’s back in the form of Maripet Donovan’s latest creation, “Late Nite Catechism II: Sometimes We Feel Guilty Because We ARE Guilty.”
This time, Sister has been given the run of the class as well as the curriculum. It’s a catechism for the new millennium where SUV’s, reality television and cloning have shaken the old morality. Never one to edit her thoughts, Sister also bemoans the lack of religious vocations in the United States by declaring Americans to be “selfish, weak and lazy.”
And lest the audience think that to be the worst, Sister warns the assembled, “we’re not going for a pass/fail here – we’re going for a little open humiliation.
“RENT,” a rare winner of both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony for Best Musical, is this year’s bonus show and is touring the nation for the last time until 2009. “RENT” makes its stop at LSU, Sunday, Nov. 14, at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Inspired by Puccini’s “La Boheme,” “RENT” is a joyous, breathtaking and often heartbreaking musical that celebrates a community of young artists as they struggle with the soaring hopes and tough realities of today’s world.
This landmark American musical premiered off-Broadway in 1996 to ecstatic reviews and rapidly became a sold-out hit. The show transferred to Broadway and continues to play to standing room only audiences. The tenth longest running show in Broadway history, “RENT” is about being young in New York, being brave and being scared, being in love and being in trouble, having hope for today and faith in tomorrow.
The national award-winning LSU Union Great Performances Theater Series is one of the longest-running variety performing arts series in Baton Rouge. It is sponsored by the LSU Union Program Council Lively Arts Committee and is one of more than 500 programs sponsored by UPC each year. All performances will take place in the LSU Union Theater.
Carl Motsenbocker, a professor in the LSU's College of Agriculture, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture and conduct research at Kasetsart University in Thailand during the 2004-05 academic year, according to the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
An experienced teacher and researcher, Motsenbocker will teach a graduate level class in vegetable crops physiology at the university. In addition, he will conduct research to investigate the effect of environmental practices on hot pepper pungency at the Tropical Vegetable Research Center on the Kasetsart University Kampaengsan campus.
He is one of approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad to some 140 countries during the 2004-05 academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program.
Motsenbocker, who has been at LSU since 1991, holds a master’s and a doctoral of science degree in horticultural science from North Carolina State University and a bachelor of science degree in plant science from Cornell University. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in northeast Thailand in the early 1980s working in agricultural development with the Department of Land Development.
The sabbatical will provide an opportunity for Motsenbocker to return to work in agriculture in Thailand and to conduct research on hot peppers there. This commodity is important for both Thailand and Louisiana, and the collaborative research effort will be mutually beneficial.
Motsenbocker will also be working with the principal international vegetable research center, the Asian Vegetable and Research Development Center's Asian Research Center, while in Thailand.
Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Scholar Program’s purpose is to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries. The Fulbright Program, America’s flagship international educational exchange activity, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. In its 57 years of existence, thousands of U.S. faculty and professionals have studied, taught or conducted research abroad and thousands of their counterparts from other countries have engaged in similar activities in the United States. They are among more than 250,000 American and foreign university students, K-12 teachers and university faculty and professionals who have participated in one of the several Fulbright exchange programs.
Recipients of Fulbright Scholar awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement and because they have demonstrated extraordinary leadership potential in their fields. Among thousands of prominent Fulbright Scholar alumni are Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist; Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel Corp.
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| William Bowdon |
Maj. Gen. William G. “Bill” Bowdon has been named the new president and CEO of the LSU Foundation. He will begin the job during the first week of August.
Bowdon, an Alexandria native, received his bachelor’s degree in business administration from LSU in 1970. He entered the Marine Corps that year and trained as a fighter pilot. His distinguished 34-year career in the Marines includes command positions at several Marine air bases. Most recently, Bowdon served as commanding general of the base at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
In 2003, Bowdon’s career achievements were recognized by the LSU Alumni Association when he was inducted into the LSU Alumni Association Hall of Distinction.
Mark K. Anderson, the chairman of the board of directors of the Foundation, announced Bowdon as the new president following the conclusion of a national search for candidates. The search committee was chaired by Burton Weaver, a board member.
Bowdon will succeed Cecil R. Phillips, who is retiring after 12 years of service with the Foundation.