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PSU associate professor named to Economic Dev. Advisory Council

March 7th, 2014 by Lynn

    PLYMOUTH — Plymouth State University Associate Professor Daniel Lee has been named to New Hampshire’s Economic Development Advisory Council as economist for a three year term.

    “I am honored and excited to join the outstanding business leaders at the Council,” said Lee. “I look forward to making contributions to help the state’s economy move forward.”

    Lee has taught at PSU since 2012 and has also served as a tourism economist for the state since 2012.

    Since 2010, Lee has published a periodic economic report, the North Country Economic Index for the state of New Hampshire and Coos County. He is also a faculty fellow at PSU’s Center for Rural Partnerships and has engaged in research projects serving the local communities. He is a project economist at the Institute for New Hampshire Studies, and has conducted economic impact studies for tourism-related organizations in the State of New Hampshire.

    Carmen R. Lorentz, Director of the state’s Division of Economic Development, said Lee will be an excellent resource for the Council.

    “Dr. Lee has an extensive background in economics and his familiarity with New Hampshire’s tourism economy will be a valuable asset to the New Hampshire Economic Development Advisory Council,” Lorentz said.

    Thad Guldbrandsen, PSU’s Vice Provost for Research and Engagement, said Lee has a great track record in helping define the Granite State’s economic development patterns and opportunities.

    “Since arriving at PSU, Dan has been quietly, carefully working to understand what makes New Hampshire’s economy tick,” Guldbrandsen said. “We cannot understand New Hampshire’s economy unless we understand tourism. Tourism is the second largest sector in our state’s economy. Beyond that, the tourism is a key driver in real estate economy, building trades, and so much more. Dan is the New Hampshire economist that helps us understand what is happening with all of that. His will be a powerful voice for New Hampshire in the future.”

    “It is really rewarding to see Dan Lee’s work recognized by others around the state,” added Guldbrandsen. “ He certainly deserves recognition for his work. This is also a testament to PSU’s climate for research and scholarship that has supported Dan over these years.”

    Lee earned a Ph.D. in economics in 2007 from the Claremont Graduate University; he is a member of the Regional Science Association International.

     

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    PSU hosts high school jazz festival March 11

    March 6th, 2014 by Heather

      PSU hosts high school jazz festival March 11

      PLYMOUTH — The Department of Music, Theatre and Dance at Plymouth State University will host the annual All New England Jazz Festival for high school students Tuesday, March 11, at the Silver Center for the Arts.

      The daylong festival will feature two select student ensembles. Workshops and rehearsals will conclude with a 6 p.m. concert in Hanaway Theatre, directed by festival conductors John W. Jones and Mark A. Stickney. The Plymouth State University Jazz Ensemble will open the concert.

      Jones is professor of music and director of the jazz ensemble at the Sunderman Conservatory of Music at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. The composer has been commissioned to write works for wind band, jazz ensemble and chamber orchestra. The Buzz Jones Big Band has toured Europe multiple times and released three compact discs.

      Stickney is assistant professor of music and director of bands at PSU. He has served on the brass faculties of Salve Regina University and the Community College of Rhode Island, and performed with the American Band, Fanfare Brass, The Narragansett Tuba Quartet, and as a member of the Rutgers Wind Ensemble.

      Tickets are $7-$10. Call 535-2787 or (800) 779-3869 or visitwww.silver.plymouth.edu for details.

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      PSU, UNH research shows biomedical bleeding affects horseshoe crab behavior

      March 6th, 2014 by Lynn

        Courtesy Photo - Chris Chabot, professor of neurobiology at PSU and a co-author on the study.

        PLYMOUTH — New research from Plymouth State University and the University of New Hampshire indicates that collecting and bleeding horseshoe crabs for biomedical purposes causes short-term changes in their behavior and physiology that could exacerbate the crabs’ population decline in parts of the east coast.

        Each year, the U.S. biomedical industry harvests the blue blood from almost half a million living horseshoe crabs for use in pharmaceuticals — most notably, a product called Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) — used to ensure vaccines and medical equipment are free of bacterial contamination. This lifesaving product can only be made from horseshoe crab blood, says researcher Win Watson, UNH professor of zoology.

        “The crabs are very heavily bled — about 30 percent or more of their blood is taken, and that’s a fair amount,” says Chris Chabot, professor of neurobiology at PSU and a co-author on the study.

         “Approximately 20 to 30 percent of those crabs do not survive, so we were curious if any of the surviving crabs experienced nearly lethal effects from the bleeding,” he said.

        Courtesy Photo - Each year, the U.S. biomedical industry harvests the blue blood from almost half a million living horseshoe crabs for use in pharmaceuticals.

        The study, “Sublethal Behavioral and Physiological Effects of the Biomedical Bleeding Process on the American Horseshoe Crab,” was published recently in the journal The Biological Bulletin.

        With funding provided by a New Hampshire Sea Grant development grant, Chabot, Watson and lead author Rebecca Anderson, a PSU graduate student, replicated the biomedical bleeding process to determine the potential impacts on the crabs’ behavior.

        After capturing the crabs in New Hampshire’s Great Bay and transporting some of them back to Chabot’s lab at PSU and others to UNH’s Jackson Estuarine Laboratory, the researchers monitored their movements for a week and then harvested some of their blood. Electronic data recorders called accelerometers that measure the crabs’ speed and direction were strapped to their backs and the crabs were placed in running wheels in tanks filled with seawater.

        The researchers found that for approximately two weeks after the bleeding procedure, the crabs’ behavior differed from their behavior prior to the bleeding — they moved less frequently and with different patterns and rhythms, indicating they may have been disoriented. The researchers hope to track the movements of bled horseshoe crabs in their native environments to verify that their lab findings apply to real life behavioral changes.

        One of the concerns, Anderson explains, is that the crabs are collected for bleeding during their breeding cycle when it’s easiest to capture them on beaches. If the crabs are bled and then returned to the beach in a disoriented condition, they might be less likely to breed. This has the potential to exacerbate the population declines that are already occurring in parts of the east coast, including Delaware and Cape Cod. The populations in N.H. seem to be holding steady at the moment.

        The researchers feel improvements in the collection and bleeding process are imperative to help preserve the species. In addition to the economic value of their blood, horseshoe crab eggs provide a critical food source for shorebirds that stop in Delaware on their migration to the Arctic. The adult crabs are also harvested for bait in the whelk and eel fisheries in many states, not including New Hampshire.

        “We want to ensure that the biomedical bleeding is a sustainable practice, because horseshoe crabs are a critical component of the coastal ecosystem,” Chabot says.

        “I hope that this research helps to design management regulations that meet the needs of both the people and the crabs,” Anderson adds.

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        PSU Faculty Showcases Artwork

        March 6th, 2014 by Lynn

          Cynthia Robinson’s “Flow” draws upon the theme of rivers.

          LACONIA — Several PSU art instructors discussed their current exhibit, “Faculty Selections: Plymouth State University”, during a reception at the Belknap Mill on Feb. 21. The collaboration between the Mill and the University provided an opportunity for the faculty to expand awareness to a new audience as well as giving students a chance to assist in a gallery show.

          Exhibit coordinator Kathi J. Smith, a teacher-lecturer in Professional Presentation Practices, said it gave her students, who do matting and framing, an opportunity to help with the set-up of a gallery space as well as to appreciate the work of their instructors.

          “I was approached by Denise and Frank Sharlow about bringing our faculty exhibit to Laconia. We do an annual show in the Karl Drerup Gallery in Plymouth in June and thought this would be a great opportunity to expand to another area,” she said.

          Her own contribution was a realistic sketch, “Dumpster”, which provided a contrast to some of the more abstract pieces in the exhibit which featured works in several media, including oils, acrylics, watercolors, ceramics, printmaking, graphite drawings and sculpture. While diverse, many of the works expressed an appreciation of New Hampshire’s lakes and mountains, reflecting a sense of celebration and experimentation.

          Annette Woodson Mitchell, who coordinates the university’s drawing program, entered a colorful mixed-media work using acrylic paint, Sumi ink and foam print on Arches Cover, a printmaking paper. She said the complex pattern incorporates movement and was inspired by the landscape she so loves, as well as her love of color.

          Philip C. Inwood, an adjunct professor teaching art history, exhibited two panels from a multi-panel series of graphite and pencil on paper, which he said were inspired by the mountains. The first panel clearly shows the shape of distant mountains, while the intense, almost manic pencil and eraser work on the other panel nearly obscures the mountains while hinting of objects in the foreground that are difficult to make out. “It’s often like that,” he said; “as you get closer, the detail becomes so complex that you lose sight of the more distant hills you saw from a distance.” He added that the work was experimental; he did not set out with something specific in mind but, rather, discovered it as he proceeded.

          That is a sentiment others expressed at the show, as well. Rather than planning on a result, art often is a process of discovery.

          Cynthia Cutting Robinson, director of exhibitions, showed a large, mixed-media sculpture, “Flow”, which took the river as its theme. The painted waves and ripples form the background of a three-dimensional piece utilizing wood taken from the riverside, with burlap providing a textured bank.

          Jong-Yoon Kim exhibited colorful “Fun With Paper” sculptures that utilize light and shadow to dramatic effect. Kimberly Anderson Ritchie offered “Unearth”, a monotype with gauche and copper pigmentan. Elizabeth D’Amico’s “Retirement” is an acrylic monotype with collage.

          Jay Moskowictz exhibited three small oil paint monoprints, “Primary Studies”, that use paint and scraps of newspaper to showcase works in red, yellow and blue.

          The exhibit is continuing in the Mill’s Riverside Room.

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          PSU Faculty Recital with Emily Jaworski and Dan Perkins March 9 at the Silver Center

          March 6th, 2014 by Lynn

            PLYMOUTH — Mezzo-soprano Emily Jaworski, with Professor Dan Perkins on piano, will present “The Deepest Desire” at 1 p.m. Sunday, March 9, in the Smith Recital Hall at the Silver Center for the Arts. There is no charge for admission.

            Emily Jaworski

            Hailed by Classical Voice of New England as “thoroughly delightful and a consummate storyteller, musician and artist,” Emily Jaworski is earning a reputation for excellence and constantly surprising audiences with her versatility. From Bach oratorios to the art songs of Brahms and Copland, to jazz and musical theatre, Jaworski is committed to forging a deep emotional connection with every piece she sings.

            “The Deepest Desire” is a recital program featuring forgotten works of Wolf, Debussy and Barber, as well as Jake Heggie’s song cycle “The Deepest Desire: Four Meditations on Love,” based on texts by social activist Sister Helen Prejean.

            Perkins says the texts are Prejean’s response to Heggie’s question about her own sense of spirituality and its meaning. They describe the process of examining the “deepest waters of her being to find the core of her spirituality: the deepest desire of her heart.”

            Dan Perkins

            Perkins is professor of music and director of choral activities at Plymouth State University, where he was awarded the first Stevens-Bristow Distinguished Professorship. He is founder and music director of the New Hampshire Master Chorale, music director of the Manchester Choral Society, and was principal guest conductor of the Vietnam National Opera and Ballet. He will return to Vietnam in November 2014 as conductor of the Asia Pacific Activities Conference (APAC) Orchestra.

            Guest artist Donna Shin will perform the flute part for the Heggie song cycle.

            Information about the Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance at Plymouth State University is online at Plymouth.edu/department/mtd.

            General information about events at Plymouth State University is online at ThisWeek@Plymouth.edu, http://thisweek.blogs.plymouth.edu/.

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            Plymouth State prepares for curling this month

            March 6th, 2014 by Lynn

              PLYMOUTH — If you are one of the many spectators of curling during the Sochi 2014 Olympics, you have witnessed the nail-biting intensity, unyielding pressure and the fiery spirit as the teams fought brilliantly for the gold. The excitement has been shared amongst the 12 nations who have competed in Sochi.

              While the Olympics are winding down, the Plymouth State Ice Arena is gearing up. Forget about waiting another four years; curling is in the house starting March 18.

              The beauty of curling is that it can be enjoyed by an array of people. There is no running; there is no jumping; there is technique and strategy. Given that the game is played on ice wearing sneakers, balance is paramount. Luckily, this skill can be improved on by simply playing the sport. The most physical aspect of curling comes from furiously sweeping in front of the stone as it glides down the opposite end.

              Still not sure if you can curl? The ice arena is going to let you try for free so you can find out just how much fun you can have on ice. The Plymouth State Ice Arena is hosting its curling open house on March 18-20 and 24 from 6 to 8 p.m. All of the equipment will be provided and admission is free (donations are graciously accepted). Those participating in the adult league are required to attend one Intro to Curling Session.

              On March 18 and 19 they will be focusing on the fundamentals of curling; participants will learn how to deliver a stone. March 20 and 24 will teach the strategy of the game to experience the competitive side of Olympic curling. More than one session may be attended if desired. To sign up for an intro session, please e-mail the ice arena at  psu-icearena@plymouth.edu.

              The adult league begins on Tuesday, March 25, and runs until April 22 with playoffs the week of April 29. The first eight registered teams will play in league night 1 on Tuesday nights from 6 to 8 p.m. The next eight registered teams will play in league night 2 on Sunday nights from 6 to 8 p.m.

              Additional nights will be added depending on the number of registered teams. To register to play, please e-mail psu-icearena@plymouth.edu as a team or an individual. Interested individuals will be placed on a team consisting of four players with up to two alternates (all members must attend an intro session).

              Join us for our curling open house to watch, play and even sign up for a team. See what all the hype is about. Discover the joy and laughter shared amongst teammates and adversaries alike. Curling is an experience that will have people talking, cheering and everyone smiling.

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              Plymouth State mourns loss of Dr. Norton Bagley

              March 6th, 2014 by Lynn

                 Longtime educator authored history of institution

                Dr. Norton Bagley

                PLYMOUTH — Longtime Plymouth State educator Dr. Norton R. Bagley passed away Feb. 23 at the age of 94.

                At Plymouth, he had served over decades as professor, director of public relations, dean of students, dean of instruction, director of admissions, director of placement and as chair of the Education Department. Known as “Mr. Plymouth,” he was honored for his learning, his warmth, and his extraordinary ability to inspire students to achieve their dreams. Even decades after they had graduated, alumni always referred to him with affection as “Dr. Bagley,” a mark of respect in which he took pride.

                Plymouth State University President Sara Jayne Steen said Dr. Bagley’s contributions to the institution were extraordinary.

                “He believed in creating a learning environment of mutual respect between student and teacher, and among students themselves,” Steen said. “He was a gentleman in the most positive sense, and an educator who found joy in knowledge and in quiet commitment to others.”

                His expertise was respected. He was the college representative of the New Hampshire Council for Education, assisting in the improvement of teacher education statewide. He received the Granite State Award from the University System for his service to education in New Hampshire. He expanded Plymouth’s education programs, introducing various master’s degree programs and laying the groundwork for today’s graduate programs in many aspects of education, including the master’s in guidance and counseling. For the celebration of Plymouth State’s 100th anniversary, he wrote a history of the institution, One Hundred Years of Service. Until his death, he continued to be actively engaged with the institution he loved and had helped to create.

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                Plymouth State mourns the loss of ‘Dr. Bagley’

                March 1st, 2014 by Lynn

                  Longtime Plymouth State educator Dr. Norton R. Bagley passed away Feb. 23 at the age of 94.

                  At Plymouth he had served over decades as professor, director of public relations, dean of students, dean of instruction, director of admissions, director of placement and as chair of the Education Department. Known as “Mr. Plymouth,” he was honored for his learning, his warmth, and his extraordinary ability to inspire students to achieve their dreams. Even decades after they had graduated, alumni always referred to him with affection as “Dr. Bagley,” a mark of respect in which he took pride.

                  Plymouth State University President Sara Jayne Steen said Dr. Bagley’s contributions to the institution were extraordinary.

                  “He believed in creating a learning environment of mutual respect between student and teacher and among students themselves,” Steen said. “He was a gentleman in the most positive sense and an educator who found joy in knowledge and in quiet commitment to others.”

                  His expertise was respected. He was the college representative of the New Hampshire Council for Education, assisting in the improvement of teacher education statewide. He received the Granite State Award from the University System for his service to education in New Hampshire. He expanded Plymouth’s education programs, introducing various master’s degree programs and laying the groundwork for today’s graduate programs in many aspects of education, including the master’s in guidance and counseling.

                  For the celebration of Plymouth State’s 100th anniversary, he wrote a history of the institution, “One Hundred Years of Service.” Until his death, he continued to be actively engaged with the institution he loved and had helped to create.

                   

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                  April Bernard is guest of the Eagle Pond Authors’ Series March 13 at PSU

                  February 27th, 2014 by Lynn

                    April Bernard

                    PLYMOUTH — April Bernard is a teacher, a novelist, an essayist and most famously, a poet. She grew up in New England, and was educated at Harvard, following which she moved to New York City to work in publishing. Her most recent collection of poetry is “Romanticism,” published in 2009.

                    The Eagle Pond Authors Series at Plymouth State University will host Bernard in a free reading at 7 p.m. March 16 in the Smith Recital Hall at the Silver Center for the Arts. Poet John Ashbery said “April Bernard’s voice is a voice of one crying in the wilderness, but the wilderness is our populated, all too familiar one, and her psalms are striped with modern despair, loving and knowing.”

                    Bernard has taught widely and was for many years a magazine and book editor in New York City. As Director of Creative Writing, she is a member of the English Department faculty at Skidmore College, and is also on the faculty of the Bennington MFA Writing Seminars. Her honors include a Guggenheim award, the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, a Whitney Humanities Fellowship at Yale University, a Sidney Harman Fellowship, and the Stover Prize. The Whitman Award judge said, “The wit here is corrosive, the ear faultless, the raised voice one to which we cannot but listen.”

                    “I tend to allow my poems to generate their own form,” Bernard told Reb Livingston of Post Road.

                    “Once it’s on the page, I start to see a shape to it and I say organically this wants to be a poem in triplets or this wants to be a poem with really long lines. As I’m revising it I allow it to be the thing it seems to want to be. But it pretty much has to be generated from within. I would say that it’s not very conscious, it’s really much more an intuitive thing. Although I do actually write formal poems as exercises when I am stuck,” she said.

                    She told Livingston, “ … a poem is capturing a moment of absolute intense emotion. …It becomes a means of conveyance to hand the poem to somebody else because you can’t just hurl the emotion at them. You have to give it to them in a form that is stable and that won’t explode. It’s like putting dynamite in a nice box and then you hand the box, which is the poem, to the other person and the other person has to unpack it. If you’re lucky, they will enjoy the unwrapping. Part of the purposeful difficulty of the poem is to prolong the unwrapping process and to prolong the expectation.”

                    Bernard has published three other poetry collections: Blackbird Bye Bye, Psalms, and Swan Electric. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The New Republic, The Nation and Slate.

                    Free tickets for the Eagle Pond Authors Series are available at the Silver Center Box Office 535-2787 or (800) 779-3869, and are highly recommended. The series is presented with generous support from the Follett Higher Education Group (PSU Bookstore).

                    Now in its 16th year, the Eagle Pond Authors’ Series is a tribute to Donald Hall, one of the nation’s most beloved poets and authors. Hall remains the heart and soul of this series and is instrumental in bringing nationally and internationally revered poets to the PSU campus.

                    Hall will be on hand to introduce Bernard and both will stay after the reading for an author’s reception and book signing. Information about the Eagle Pond Authors’ Series is online at silver.plymouth.edu.

                    General information about programs and events at Plymouth State University is online at

                    ThisWeek@PSU, http://www.thisweek.blogs.plymouth.edu.

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                    “MOMMA” exhibit opens at the Silver Center for the Arts

                    February 27th, 2014 by Lynn

                       

                      Marcia Santore, “Lupa,” painting.

                      Four artist-mothers, Marcia Santore and Annette Mitchell of Plymouth, Laura Morrison of Concord and Patricia Schappler of Bedford will reveal their insights into the concepts of mother and motherhood in a new exhibition, MOMMA, opening at the Silver Center for the Arts at Plymouth State University March 3. A public reception will be held from 4-6 p.m. Tuesday, March 4 at Silver. The show runs through April 11.

                      Motherhood is a profoundly feminist subject for Santore, who curated “MOMMA”, choosing the artists and art works for the exhibition. “MOMMA” explores themes of motherhood from the visceral, to the emotional, to the intellectual — responding to a society that sentimentalizes mothers but does not always respect them, according to the curator. Santore says the exhibition is about showing something important about artist-mothers, “how being mothers affects the work we do as artists — we are who we are and where we are in large part because of our roles as mothers. How we see the world, what we notice, what we make art about is strongly affected by our roles as mothers.” But she adds emphatically that MOMMA is not a polemical motherhood manifesto. “It is not about mothers being better or worse than other women, or advocating any particular way of being a mother, nor is it about defining women as mothers first and anything else second.”

                      Each artist was chosen because she addresses aspects of motherhood in her work, but each from a different perspective. Laura Morrison’s sculptural yarn work addresses the generative properties of nature, while her delicate assemblages are ruminations about family and connections between people. Morrison learned how to sew from her mother, playing with the materials in the sewing room. The memories generated by their working together represent a large part of Morrison’s childhood. Patti Schappler’s drawings and paintings create lifesize and more-than-lifesize, closely observed portraits of her children over time, individually and as a family. She says that since her teenage years she has used drawing as a way of quickly looking at and talking about the relationships she observes in the world. Annette Mitchell is bringing her perspective as a mother, a grandmother and a daughter to the show. Her paintings, prints and quilts reflect the fact that life with children can be both humorous and exhausting. The first of her own paintings Santore selected for the show is “Lupa,” a painting of the wolf who raised Romulus and Remus. In further exploring the topic, however, Santore ended up creating an entire new series of works, the “Minivan Series,” which is based on things seen and imagined from different perspectives inside a vehicle associated with motherhood.

                      Karl Drerup Art Gallery and Exhibitions Director Cynthia Robinson says the artwork will be “fabulous, a visual feast that will lure us in and invite us to reflect on our own experience in today’s culture.” How working female artists who are also mothers in rural areas like New Hampshire are undervalued in the art world, is an underlying concept in “MOMMA.”

                      The exhibitions program, in collaboration with the PSU Women’s Studies Council and Lamson Library, will present the film “Who Does She Think She Is?” at 7 p.m. Monday, March 10 in the Smith Recital Hall at the Silver Center. This documentary by Academy Award-winning producer Pamela Tanner Boll features five bold women who navigate some of the most problematic intersections of our time: parenting and creativity, partnering and independence, economics and art. Through their lives Tanner Boll explores what it means to nurture children and family, and keep the creative fire burning within. The 82- minute film will be followed by a brief discussion. There is no charge for admission.

                      Silver Center hours are Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, noon to 6 p.m. Information about the gallery and exhibitions program at Plymouth State University is online at Plymouth.edu/gallery.

                      General information about events at Plymouth State is online at ThisWeek@PSU, http://thisweek.blogs.plymouth.edu/.

                       

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