Mary Rogers, Music, and Nels Worden, Chemistry, were honored with Staff Appreciation Awards on June 10. They received congratulations and a monetary gift during the morning session of Staff Appreciation Day.
Each will be honored next May at the Commencement 2004 ceremony. President Arminana presented Mary and Nels with certificates and a monetary gift. Provost Bernie Goldstein read the following nomination information about each person:
Mary Rogers came to the campus in 1981. In the many letters of support that came with her nomination form, it is apparent that, as one letter states, "Mary is nothing less than the heart and soul of the Music Department. I've never seen Mary not greet everyone who comes to her office with a smile, a kind word and her absolute full attention. She is a cherished friend and mentor to staff, students and faculty."
Many also speak of Mary's above and beyond involvement in the department. Professor Gardner Rust tells of Mary's participation specifically in the gamelan. "She joined as a way to relax after a hard day's work.
She had no previous experience with playing music of any kind. The gamelan instruments aren't exactly easy to learn. And she did a terrific job. Not only did she learn to play several of the instruments, she did so with a sense of purpose and lightness of spirit from which we all benefited."
"When a student comes back after fifteen years and they are happy to see her, you can tell that even back in the early days she was that same caring and genuine person." Mary was nominated by the staff and faculty of the Center for Performing Arts, the Music Department and the Theatre Department.
Nels Worden's outstanding and consistent contributions have brought him nominations for this award three times. He graduated from Sonoma State in 1981 with a B.S. in chemistry. He started working at SSU in 2000 in his current position as the Chemistry Department technician and has consistently exemplified wonderful creativity in his position.
Nels participated in the creation of two new on-line experiments in the analytical chemistry class, an area in which he has an extensive professional background.
He has time and again breathed new life into outdated equipment including turning an extra display freezer in a residence hall room into a glass-doored refrigerator allowing classes to watch experiments through its doors.
For SSU's 40th anniversary celebration, Nels took the initiative to locate argon gas and replace the oxygen inside the time capsule, better preserving the contents of the time capsule. Nels also sets up the chemical reactions for the chemistry magic show. Nels was nominated by the faculty of the Chemistry Department.
An All-American program of stars and stripes music by Berlin, Sousa and Gould opens the Green Music Festival 2003 season on Friday, July 4 in the fourth annual Independence Day on the Green concert at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, Calif.
This classic family get-together features picnicking on the campus lawn by the lakes with a vintage view of the best fireworks in the county. A sell-out crowd of over 4,000 people is expected.
Gates open at 4 p.m. for pre-concert activities that include games and music for kids. Picnic throughout the afternoon. Boxed dinners, hot dogs and a la carte sandwiches as well as excellent Sonoma County wines will be available. Visitors can also bring their own picnic dinners.
Warming up the crowd at 5 p.m. will be the popular 15-piece San Francisco Starlight Orchestra. At 7:30 p.m., guest conductor Tim Hankewich leads the Santa Rosa Symphony in a program of patriotic classics including "God Bless America" sung by mezzo-soprano Bonnie Brooks.
Hankewich, associate conductor of the Kansas City Symphony says, "the 4th of July is not only a celebration of the nation's independence, but a time to reflect and reconnect with our families."
Hankewich also plans to bring Orchestra Games to the concert stage - a feature designed to humorously showcase the various instruments and sections of the orchestra in a good-natured competition where the greater the audience participation, the greater the fun.
Tickets range from $7 to $52. Both lawn and reserved table seating are offered. For tickets and information, call (707) 546-8742 or visit the website at www.greenmusicfestival.org.
The campus is 40 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. The Festival will move to its permanent home, the Donald and Maureen Green Music Center at SSU, when it opens in a few years.
Leading authorities on Jack London will present a captivating series of public lectures and readings at Sonoma State University from June 25-August 13. The program this year offers readings of London's tales by celebrity guests during two free Fireside Tale programs, especially for families, in the campus Alumni Amphitheatre behind Evert B. Person theatre.
In honoring the 100th anniversary of the publication of London's most popular story, The Call of the Wild, the eight-week lecture series at 7 p.m. on Wednesday evenings promises to awaken readers of all ages to the inspiration of the London legacy. All lectures will be held in the Evert B. Person Theatre. Fees for the lectures are $6 each. All six are $30.
The series examines the life and works of this dynamic American author from multiple perspectives ; explorer, pioneer, writer, traveler, architect and naturalist. Discussion, reading and film topics center on London's contribution to literacy and focus on his legacy and importance in today's world.
The full schedule includes:
June 25 : Fireside Tales - Dramatic readings of excerpts from Jack London's The Call of the Wild. Free in Alumni Amphitheatre.
July 2 : Sara S. Hodson presents an illustrated talk on the Huntington Library's 50,000-item Jack London collection, focusing on the resources that richly document his Klondike tales as well as his own life in the rugged, unforgiving North in the lecture titled "The Call of the Files: Finding Jack London's Klondike in the Huntington Library"
July 9 : Donna Campbell examines London's first unsuccessful Yukon novel, "A Daughter of the Snows," which taught him to shape his later masterpiece, "The Call of the Wild" in the lecture titled "Learning to Write The Call of the Wild: Jack London's Northland Stories and A Daughter of the Snows"
July 16 : Susan Nuernberg looks at how London's most-famous tale of naked, howling savagery has survived its transformation into film by viewing clips and discussing the success in capturing the power and beauty of the novel on film in the lecture titled "Hollywood Takes On The Call of the Wild"
July 23 : Robert Coleman-Senghor contrasts the experiences of John Muir with those of Jack London and explore the implications of topography and climate in shaping London's narratives and aesthetic in the lecture titled "The White Sublime: The Aesthetics of Vastness in Jack London's Northland Stories"
July 30 : Daniel Dyer discusses the foundation of reality (historical, geographical) underlying The Call of the Wild and showing historical photographs of many/most of the sites London mentions in the novella in the lecture titled "Answering The Call of the Wild on the Long Trail of Jack and Buck." According to Dyer, "London was not imagining these sites; he was remembering them."
August 6 : Jeanne Reesman shares her research and writings on the topic in a lecture on race in London's Yukon fiction, particularly on The Call of the Wild as a type of slave narrative in the lecture titled "Racing Wilderness: Race and Slavery in The Call of the Wild"
August 13 : Fireside Tales: Dramatic readings of Jack London's" To Build A Fire" and excerpts from other Northland Stories. Free in Alumni Amphitheatre.
For further information, contact Barbara Brooks, Jack London Lecture Series, (707) 664-2353.
A seminar exploring the complexities of running and sustaining family businesses will be held on Friday, June 27 at the Doubletree Hotel, 1 Doubletree Drive, in Rohnert Park. Registration is at 8 a.m. The program runs from 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
The course is sponsored by Sonoma State University's School of Business and Economics and the University of the Pacific Institute for Family Business. It is part of an initial effort by the university to establish a long term program in this area.
Dennis T. Jaffee will discuss the process of sustaining a business into a new generation, developing new leadership, providing fair inheritance to all heirs, and keeping the family connected.
The program will focus on several tools that helps family members some together to problem solve, create clear agreements and talk through differences in perspective and needs. "It will offer specific tools for families to manage the links between family and business so that they sustain the wealth-producing engine as well as family continuity and connection, " says Jaffee.
Jaffee is a professor at Saybrook Graduate School in San Francisco, and a leader in the field of family business. He is author of two of the leading books in the field, "Working With the Ones You Love," and "Working With Family Businesses."
He is also co-creator of the Aspen Family Business Inventory, a member of the board of Family Firm Institute and the World Business Academy. He has worked with families for more than 20 years, helping them manage the issues of family and business succession.
Other partners in the program include Exchange Bank, Matsen Insurance Services and Friedman, O'Brien, Goldberg & Zarian.
Cost is $75 for the first family member, $25 for each additional member. Those sponsored by the partners in the program will be admitted free.
For further information, contact the University of the Pacific (209) 946-2956 or (888) 439-2867
