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for University of West Georgia faculty and
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People

Jazz Percussion Group to Perform in Italy

The UWG Jazz Percussion Group, under the direction of Dr. Doug Overmier, associate professor and director of bands, was selected to perform at the prestigious Conference of the International Society for Music Educators in Bologna, Italy in July. The group was chosen from a pool of more than 100 applicants from around the world. The group is one of four university ensembles worldwide selected to perform with professional musicians from other countries. Anyone who is interested in helping to fund the endeavor, please let Doug Overmier know.

Boddie and Students Receive Grant

boddie receives grant Geraldine Boddie, faculty advisor for the UWG chapter of the National Student Speech-Language Hearing Association (NSSLHA) and lecturer for special education and speech language pathology, and the chapter received a Nancy McKinley Regional Project Grant of $500.00 to fund their Community In-service Series. The UWG chapter will use the funds to educate local daycares (parents, daycare providers and daycare workers) in Carroll and Douglas County about speech and language development in their children. The grant is awarded to NSSLHA chapters each semester to fund community service projects in their communities.

Kudos

The Department of English and Philosophy has had two students recognized for their poetry. Graduate student Amy Ellison and undergraduate student Nick McRae have been named as two of five finalists for the Writers’ Festival Contest at Agnes Scott College. Winners will be announced in the spring. McRae, currently studying abroad in the Czech Republic, has also been accepted into the prestigious Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets at Bucknell University.

Dr. Phil Novack-Gottshall, a paleoecologist and assistant professor of geosciences, and a 2007 graduate Adam Lanier continued an SRAP research project and will be published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The journal is the second most cited science journal in the world. After presenting his undergraduate research at a regional conference in the spring, they decided the research was compelling enough to be published. The research demonstrates that brachiopods as a group underwent a prolonged size increase throughout a 200 million year interval.

Kudos features UWG faculty and staff articles and book publications, conference attendance and presentations, grants, organizational leadership and awards. E-mail your news to the Campus Chronicle editor.

Campus Talk

Laurie Braden is the newest employee hired as a Government Documents assistant at Ingram Library. She has worked as a paralegal for the Carroll County Government in the legal department and has taught as a home school educator for a decade. Braden is also a 1993 graduate of West Georgia.

In Memoriam

Dr. James Mathews, professor of English Emeritus, died Saturday, March 1. Mathews began his distinguished career at UWG in 1960, serving as chair of the Humanities Division from 1960 until 1973, and as chair of the Department of English from 1973 until his retirement in 1992. At commencement ceremonies, Dr. Mathews announced the names of the UWG graduates from 1973 until 1992 and took care to ensure that students’ names were pronounced correctly. He never forgot a student. Along with numerous articles focused on American writers, he also co-authored “50 Years of Excellence,” a short history of West Georgia College published for the 50th anniversary celebration. The West Georgia Alumni Association named him Outstanding Professor Emeritus in 1993. Memorial donations may be made in his honor to the University of West Georgia Foundation, Inc. for a scholarship.

Campus Talk features UWG faculty and staff announcements of marriages, births, new hires, promotions, transfers, retirements, trips and volunteer work. E-mail your news for publication consideration to the Campus Chronicle special sections editor.