Eleventh annual Madrigal Feaste slated for Dec. 2-4
In the style of Merrie Olde England with costumes, decorations, comedy, and fanfare, the Arkansas State University Choirs will present the eleventh Madrigal Feaste in the Grand Hall of ASU’s Fowler Center on Thursday, Dec. 2; Friday, Dec. 3; and Saturday, Dec. 4, at 6:30 p.m. he Concert Choir and Chamber Singers, led by Dr. Dale Miller, director of choral activities, and choral music education professor, Kyle Chandler, will host the evening’s entertainment. They will serve as the court of “King Henry the Eighth of England, Jonesboro, and Craighead County.” Guests will enjoy the Wassail Bowl beginning at 6:15 p.m., and seating will begin with the first fanfare at 6:30 p.m.

Tickets for Thursday’s and Saturday’s performances will be available through Monday, Nov. 29, at the ASU Central Box Office, 972-ASU1, or 888-ASU-FANS. The Friday evening performance will be hosted by the ASU Faculty Women’s Club, and tickets may be obtained by contacting any FWC member or Madrigal Feaste chair Libby James at ext. 3055. Seats for the Thursday and Saturday performances are reserved and are limited by space available. Ticket prices are $35 for the general public, and $30 for ASU faculty, staff, and students, as well as senior citizens. Proceeds will benefit the ASU Choir concert tour fund to Carnegie Hall in March 2012. For details, including a list of  personnel, additional photos, music, and the menu, see the NewsPage release.           

ASU SBTDC offers advanced Facebook seminar tonight
The Arkansas State University Small Business and Technology Development Center (SBTDC) along with the Jonesboro Regional Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Jonesboro Association will offer a three-hour “Advanced Facebook Marketing” Seminar Thursday, Nov. 18, from 6-9 p.m. at the ASU Technical Center, 5504 Krueger Drive, Jonesboro. In this seminar, attendees will explore added tools for Facebook marketing including how to use Facebook insights to develop marketing strategies; how to use Facebook community pages to your advantage; how to use Facebook social plug-ins to link business websites; how to use tips on time management techniques and tools and how to increase fan engagement. Seating is limited to 19 participants. The seminar will be taught by Abbi Siler, a social media consultant from Local2Social.This is the final time this seminar will be offered in 2010. Registration is $40 per person ($30 for Chamber and DJA members and $20 for ASU faculty, staff and students). For more information or to register, contact the Arkansas State University Small Business and Technology Development Center at ext. 3517, or by e-mail, register online or visit the ASU SBTDC on Facebook. See the ASU Small Business Blog article. See the NewsPage release.
 
Bluegrass Monday presents Kenny Stinson Nov. 22
Kenny Stinson and Perfect Tym’n will perform a concert of bluegrass music on Monday, Nov. 22, at 7 p.m. at the Collins Theatre, 120 West Emerson Street, in downtown Paragould, Arkansas. The concert is part of the Bluegrass Monday concert series presented by KASU 91.9 FM. Admission is free, but KASU will literally “pass the hat” to collect money to pay the group. The suggested donation is $5 per person. Stinson spent 25 years as a sideman, playing in the bands of bluegrass greats Jimmy Martin, David Davis, and James Monroe, the son of the man who created bluegrass music, Bill Monroe. After gaining extensive and valuable experience performing with these great bandleaders, Stinson chose to form his own group, Perfect Tym’n, which is filled with experienced, talented traditional bluegrass musicians. The group is now on tour in support of their debut CD. In addition to the concert, area bluegrass musicians are invited to come to Terry’s Café, 201 South Pruett Street (one block east of the Collins Theatre) beginning at 5 p.m. for an open jam session. Musicians are asked to bring only acoustic instruments and to play only bluegrass music. The jam sessions will end promptly at 6:45 p.m. Also, Terry’s Café will be serving plate dinners beginning at 4:30 p.m. on the evenings of Bluegrass Monday concerts. Patrons may choose from all-you-can-eat chili, a four-piece catfish dinner, pot roast or chef salad, all of which include sides, dessert and a drink. Concessions will also be available at the Collins Theatre. Bluegrass Monday concerts are held on the fourth Monday night of each month, except in December. These concerts are presented with support from Phillips Funeral Home, Backbeat Music, Main Street Paragould, the Posey Peddler, the Northeast Arkansas Bluegrass Association and KASU. KASU 91.9 FM  is the 100,000-watt public broadcasting service of ASU. For details, contact KASU program director Marty Scarbrough at ext. 2367. Visit Bluegrass Monday on Facebook and see Bluegrass Monday at MySpace Music.

Dr. Adams, students present papers at conference
Dr. Anthony Troy Adams, professor and chair, Criminology, Sociology, and Geography, and three graduate students from the Department of Criminology, Sociology, and Geography presented papers at the Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology annual meeting in St. Louis, Mo., in October. Dr. Adams conducted a 90-minute workshop, “What are We Really Teaching Our Students? Using Wagner’s the Global Achievement Gap to Expand Pedagogy,” on teaching social statistics. Dr. Adams contends that the way we teach statistical applications using lectures and canned statistical software, for example, with little regard for critical thinking, problem solving, and other elements of social interaction, inhibits learning among millennial students.   Wagner’s 7 survival skills for preparing students for the 21st-century workforce and Bloom’s revised taxonomy of cognitive learning provide a robust method for statistics education, but this requires a radically different approach to teaching. First, students work in teams. Students must also learn to lead by influence rather than authority and work cohesively, using critical thinking, including learning to ask important questions and using problem-solving approaches. Students learn to defend their decisions, communicate orally and in written form and have accountability for their end products.  Finally, Dr. Adams maintains that team work, emphasis on written and oral communication, accountability, and responsiveness may improve students’ understanding of basic statistical applications. Graduate student Matt Coulter presented  “Gaming and Friendships,” a paper that considered the four leading theories for friendship formation ((i) Cognitive consistency, (ii) Developmental, (iii) Exchange and Equity and (iv) Award association). Graduate student Brock Hathcock, presented “The Role of Social Movements in Latin America in the Post-Civil War Era,” an analysis of two distinct ways states attain power--through both participation in electoral processes and through mass mobilization. Graduate student Dominique White presented “Chocolate and Vanilla: From Richard and Mildred Loving to Present Day, An Analysis of Interracial Relationships in the South," where she discussed the importance of studying interracial couples and its implications for race relations.

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