Volume 31, No.27
April 7, 2000
Contact: Terry Day (570) 662-4844
tday@mnsfld.edu             

President Halstead’s Message To All Faculty On General Education Reform

As I indicated at the Faculty Assembly meeting on March 15 and in my follow-up correspondence to all faculty, it is essential that we move forward in the reform and revitalization of our General Education program. The date for implementation is to have the new program in place for fall 2001. That is my clear expectation.

The vote of the University Senate on March 30 was an important step forward in this process. The majority vote for the Model 2000 plan indicates that most faculty, if that vote is indicative, prefer incremental change to the current model of General Education rather than a complete overhaul. It is important to remember that this vote was taken within the context of senators selecting one proposal—a framework that with future refinements will accomplish the broad goals of a General Education program. Now it is absolutely essential that certain elements of this proposal be strengthened if this is to be a General Education framework that enhances educational offerings for our students and advances the University. Many of these elements I underscored at Faculty Assembly meetings last Fall, namely: a clear, unique plan for Mansfield University that will help us attract and retain better students; a broad-based liberal arts core and interdisciplinary approach; elements of student choice and a first-year experience including integrated cultural events; and the plan must emerge from the faculty given my strong confidence in shared governance and the fact that the curriculum is the purview of the faculty.

I am prepared to support a continuation of a General Education model that contains a core and five distribution blocks. However, there are additional features that the Implementation Committee must consider seriously if we are to have a General Education program that will not only help us to attract quality students, but also to serve all students in helping them to become capable and productive participants in an international world of the 21st Century.

Therefore, I am charging the Implementation Committee of eight faculty members to work with the proposed Model 2000 design, give serious consideration to the 15 point charge, and report back to AAC, APC, the University Senate and me by mid-Fall 2000 adhering to the schedule outlined by the University Senate Executive Committee.

A complete version of my email message to all faculty is available on the University’s website, along with the committee’s charge and constituency.

Campaign Kick-Off

     The first annual Mansfield University Foundation Campus Campaign kicked-off with a breakfast for the campaign employee volunteers Wednesday in Manser South Hall.
     Funds raised during the campaign will help the Foundation continue its support of the University in a variety of ways. Last year the MU Foundation provided over $420,000 in financial support. Thirty-four percent provided student scholarships, 30 percent went to North Hall renovations, 18 percent was used for grants and awards and 18 percent went to technology and equipment.
     Vernon Lapps, Communication and Theatre professor, is the campaign chair. He serves as Faculty Liaison to the Foundation Board of Directors and has seen first hand how the Foundation’s work benefits students. "As a member of the scholarship committee for 10 years we did a lot of filling in the blanks, changing the names on the same scholarships year after year" Lapps said. "Three or four years ago we started getting money for new scholarships and more scholarships."
     Campaign volunteers will be contacting fellow employees over the next three weeks. Anyone who currently contributes to the Foundation will be asked to review their current giving and make changes or adjustments. Employees who have not contributed in the past will be asked to participate and new employees will be given the chance to contribute as well.
     In addressing the kick-off breakfast MU President John Halstead said, "the amount is not as important as the level of participation and giving percentages." Leslie Folmer, vice president for development and executive director of the MU Foundation added, "the cause is greater than any of us. The cause is to better serve our students."

Theatre Season Finale

     The MU Theatre will present Arthur Miller’s All My Sons April 13-16 as the final production of the 1999-2000 season.
     All My Sons thrust Miller into the national limelight as a playwright over 50 years ago. The classic drama of the American dream and the American family won the New York Drama Critic’s award as the best new American play.
     The play chronicles the effects of World War II on the Keller family. The death of a son and the marriage of another son to his dead brother’s former girlfriend are just a few of the plot twists that will intrigue and entertain theatregoers.
     Miller set the play in the backyard of this typical family. "This allows Miller to examine relationships we’re all familiar with," says Andrew Longoria, the play's director. "At the same time he is able to bring up questions about the American dream. What is it we really want in our homes and in our lives?"
     The cast includes Tom Wilson, general studies, as Joe Keller; Katie Mason, Theatre major, as Joe’s wife Kate; Marrisa Mickelberg, Theatre major, plays the role of Ann; and Jonmichael Brennan, Theatre/Broadcasting major, plays Chris, Joe’s son.
The rest of the cast includes Adam J. Bennett, Vocal Performance major; Eric Davis, Speech Communication major; Nicole Jackson, Education graduate student; Jedadiah Lane Linsley, Theatre major; Sarah Sperling, Theatre major from Lincoln University and Kevin Wright, a student at Warren L. Miller Elementary School in Mansfield.
     All My Sons will be performed at Straughn Hall Thursday, April 13 through Saturday April 15 at 8 p.m. and on Sunday, April 16 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $5 for adults, $4 for senior citizen and $2 for students with an MU ID. Call x4781 for information.

The Winds Of Spring

     The MU Concert Wind Ensemble will perform its final concert of the school year on Sunday, April 16, 3 p.m. in Steadman Theatre.
     The Concert Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Adam F. Brennan, will perform Howard Hanson’s "Laude and Gregory Youtz’s Fireworks". Alfred Reed’s "In Memoriam" will be conducted by graduate student Timothy Eick.
     The wind ensemble will also perform David Maslanka’s "A Child’s Garden of Dreams." This stunning five-movement composition is based on a series of dreams of an eight year old girl. The child chronicled these dreams and gave them to her father as a Christmas present when she was 10. The father, a psychologist, found that the stories, though child-like, contained images that were wholly incomprehensible to him and though he tried to explain them contextually, he could not because there seemed to be no personal connection to them. Each story began with the words of an old fairy tale, "Once upon a time..."
     Seeking assistance with these puzzling tales, the father brought the dreams to the eminent psychologist, Carl Jung, who also found the dreams to be rather ominous. In fact, as he wrote his pioneering work Man and His Symbols, Jung found that the dreams were a preparation for death, expressed through short stories, like the tales at primitive initiations. Nothing in the child’s dreams points to adult life and Jung believed that an unknown approach of death casts a shadow over the life and dreams of a person. The young girl did die from an infectious disease about one year after she gave the gift to her father.
     The Concert Wind Ensemble is a select group of approximately 48 woodwind, brass, and percussion players who perform concert, wind and percussion literature. In addition to performing on campus the ensemble tours Pennsylvania high schools annually.
Tickets are $5 for adults, $3 for senior citizens and students. For information call x4710.

Alexander (Sasha) Kubyshkin, Mansfield's visiting professor from Volgograd State University in Russia for the spring semester, spoke at Penn State and Willam and Mary in recent weeks. At Penn State, Kubyshkin spoke to faculty and students in the department of Germanic and Slavic languages and literatures and the center for Russian and East European studies about Russian and American stereotypes of each other. At William and Mary he addressed faculty, students, and former American diplomats on the foreign-policy implications of last week’s Russian presidential election. He also spoke with Russian-speaking students and faculty about the current political situation in Russia. Kubyshkin was MU's first Fulbright scholar-in-residence. He addressed the university's convocation exercise in September of 1996 and spent the 1996-97 academic year at Mansfield. In Russia he is professor of history and director of the "Americana" center for American studies at Volgograd State University. This is his fourth visit to MU. He is completing his fifth book. It will be the first study to be published in Russia about small American public universities. The book includes a good deal of information in the book about Mansfield.
Karen Guenther, History and Political Science, has had her essay "Divergent Views of Life in 18th Century Pennsylvania: A Review Essay" published in the autumn, 1999 issue of Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies. The essay is a comparative book review of The Story of "Woodville": The History, Architecture, and Archaeology of a Western Pennsylvania Farm by Ronald C. Carlisle and Rum Punch & Revolution: Taverngoing & Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia by Peter Thompson. She also has had two articles accepted for publication: "The World of Moses Boone: The Economic Activity of a Berks County Tanner in the 1780s" by the Historical Review of Berks County and "A Crisis of Allegiance: Berks County, Pennsylvania Quakers and the War for Independence" by Quaker History.

Greg Longwell, Rich Lupinsky, Joe deGuzman, and Shaker Ramasamy represented MU at the Penn State Badminton Open on Saturday, April 1. Ramasamy, club advisor, placed second in Men's C singles.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• "How Are We Doing?" That is the theme of the President’s Town Meeting on Tuesday, April 18 at noon. The meeting will be held in the multi-purpose room, upper floor #307 in the Alumni Hall Student Union. A "report card" will be handed out and all faculty and staff are invited to join the community dialogue on the progress of The Mansfield Plan. A light lunch will be served.
• The MU Festival Chorus will present "Requiem" by Amadeus Mozart on Saturday, April 8, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, April 9, at 3 p.m. in Steadman Theatre. Tickets are $5 for adults and senior citizens and $3 for students and children. All proceeds will benefit the Edward Brown Memorial Scholarship Fund. For information call x4710.
• The Tioga County Unit of the American Cancer Society wants to thank the faculty, staff and students for their tremendous support during Daffodil Days. Over 350 bunches of daffodils were sold, raising more than $2100. Many students volunteered their time to sell and deliver the flowers. Proceeds from Daffodil Days benefit cancer patients and their families and provide educational programs and literature throughout Tioga County.
• Susan Spafford, the reigning Miss Pennsylvania, will talk about the importance of music education, perform on the violin and answer questions in Steadman Theatre, Tuesday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. "A Night of Music with Miss Pennsylvania" is sponsored by the MU Student Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association and the Student Activities Office.
• The Center for Lifelong Learning will offer "The Video Classroom" on Thursday, April 20, 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. in Retan Hall G-2. Presented by Bell Atlantic and sponsored by the Center for Distance Learning, the one-day workshop is an introduction to the nuts and bolts of successful distance education instruction. Lunch will be provided. Participation is limited to 10 people and the registration deadline is April 13. Call x4244 for information.
• Saturday, May 13 is WVIA member day at Knoebel’s. Twenty people from MU, with a limit of four per household, can ride the rides all day for free. For information call x4846.

LIBRARY LISTINGS

Carolina Moon by Nora Roberts
The New New Thing by Michael Lewis

THE BOTTOM LINE

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
--Mark Twain