(March 31, 2010, STILLWATER, Okla.) – Oklahoma State University President Burns Hargis will host the 2010 OSU Jazz Festival at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 10 at the Seretean Center for the Performing Arts.

Special guest is saxophonist Bob Sheppard who has performed with artists such as Chick Corea, Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell. Sheppard currently is a member of The Peter Erskine Trio.

Sheppard has recorded more than 100 television and movie soundtracks. “Bob is an accomplished musician who is in high demand in Los Angeles as a session musician,” said Jonathan Martin, assistant professor of music and director of jazz studies at OSU. “We are pleased to have him perform, as well as work with serious jazz students from throughout the state of Oklahoma.”

Sheppard’s visit to Stillwater will include a jazz master class for festival participants and an evening performance with the OSU Jazz Ensemble I. About 100 high school students from throughout the state and two OSU jazz ensemble classes are expected to take part in the day-long event.

A graduate of the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester (N.Y.), Sheppard is an educator at the University of Southern California.

The Saturday evening concert is open to the public and tickets are $5 for students and seniors, while general admission is $7. For more information, phone (405) 744-6163 or visit http://music.okstate.edu.

The festival is hosted by the OSU Office of the President and the OSU Department of Music, which is one of 24 departments in the College of Arts & Sciences.

(March 31, 2010  STILLWATER, Okla.) - The Oklahoma State University Department of Marketing has been selected to host the 2011 American Marketing Association-Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium. The event will be held June 15-19, 2011, and will introduce doctoral students to state-of-the-art marketing scholarship and methodology as they prepare to launch their academic careers.

Established in 1965, the AMA-Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium brings together outstanding marketing doctoral students and the premier marketing scholars from around the world. The invitation-only event is the most prestigious gathering of its kind in the world. Organizers expect about 100 of the top marketing professors in the world and 100 of the most promising marketing Ph.D. students to attend.

“We are delighted to have been chosen to host the AMA-Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium for 2011, “ said Tom Brown, Ardmore professor of business administration and professor of marketing in the OSU Spears School of Business. “This honor gives us the opportunity to showcase the marketing department, the Spears School of Business and OSU to some of the brightest business scholars in the world. We are excited.”

(March 26, 2010, STILLWATER, Okla.) – Professor David L. Clark, of McMaster University in Ontario, will lecture on “Kant’s Wartime and the Tremulous Body of Philosophy” at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 1 in Room 108 of the Noble Research Center at Oklahoma State University.

“Dr. Clark will address the concerns many educators have about their ability to lead students during a time when our culture seems to have directed itself solely toward the perpetuation of war,” said Martin Wallen, an English professor at OSU.

Clark currently is researching 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s last published writings. Kant is best known for the Critique of Practical Reason, considered one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy.

Clark is an associate member of the Health Studies Program at McMaster. He has been a visiting professor at the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism at the University of Western Ontario, a visiting scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a visiting fellow at the Center for Humanities at Washington University.

He is co-editor of the The Review of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies, which is the only journal to publish critical essays that explore pedagogy and its relation to a wide variety of political, social, cultural and economic issues.

The lecture is free and open to the public and is part of the Arts and Sciences Humanities Lecture Series in the College of Arts & Sciences. To learn more, phone (405) 744-9474 or visit http://english.okstate.edu.

Oklahoma State University put the spotlight on creativity across its campus with its second annual Creativity Festival Thursday.  The event included a creativity competition that challenged participants to answer the question:  How can you recreate your community?

“We were extremely pleased with the response we received to the challenge,” said OSU Creativity Initiative director Melanie Page.  “There were more than 100 proposals submitted by individuals or groups from across OSU and the Stillwater area.” 

First, second and third place winners were announced following presentations by the five finalists before an audience in the Student Union Theater.

First place was awarded to the Boomer Amphitheater Coalition which wants to construct an amphitheater at Boomer Lake in Stillwater.  The group received a $1,500 cash prize. 

Don Mitchell received $1,000 for winning second place. His proposal, BRIDGE Communications, focuses on facilitating communication between the elderly and their families.

And the third place prize and $500 was awarded to Adam Cobb and Sara Siems with oksprout.org who proposed the development of a community garden in Stillwater.

Also taking home awards and cash prizes in the kids challenge were Ethan Gay (K-3rd grade category) and Maddie Gay (4th – 7th grade category) both from Skyline Elementary in Stillwater.

The announcement of creative challenge winners capped off the day-long festival that included a creativity showcase that highlighted creativity across campus; creative cuisine which raised money for Haiti relief and a presentation by festival keynote speaker Ravi Naidoo who is a creativity expert from South Africa. 

In addition to the activities during the day a free concert was presented Thursday night featuring the Sherree Chamberlain Band. Chamberlain is a singer-songwriter and OSU graduate.

“The goal of the festival is to highlight what we are already doing across campus that’s creative,” Page said.  “So we recognize as a campus that all of us have the ability to be creative and be leaders in our respective fields.”

Seniors in the Design, Housing and Merchandising department in the College of Human Environmental Sciences at Oklahoma State University have earned cash prizes for their creative work for Value Place Extended Stay hotels. The OSU interior design students were asked to design new rooms with an ideal environment for Value Place’s unique guest profile.

“We created Value Place for small business owners, housing transitioners, and individuals traveling and relocating on a budget,” said Gina-Lynne Smith, president of Value Place Franchise Services and OSU graduate. “The goal of the redesign project is to create a room that is truly functional for our long term guest, that is modern and appealing, all while maintaining our unbeatably low weekly rates.  The new room design must be based around our guest’s needs, not around the needs of typical nightly hotel guests.”

In December, Melinda Lyon, OSU design, housing and merchandising assistant professor, was contacted by Shayla Garibay, the marketing and communications manager at Value Place.

“OSU’s design program was impressive, and after speaking with Melinda I was sure the partnership would be successful,” Garibay said.

In January, students enrolled in Lyon’s DHM Interior Design Studio VI course began working in teams on the project, incorporating designs to be retrofitted into current Value Place rooms and to be used in all the company’s new hotels.

“The senior studio students were thrilled to have the chance to gain experience from working with an actual client,” Lyon said.  “They started working on the designs the first week of this semester."

The students were given the company’s mission statement, background of the project, thorough research, a budget, and vendor information to make informed decisions about the project. The students also toured two Value Place properties in Oklahoma to plan their design.

On Feb. 17, the groups traveled to the Value Place headquarters in Wichita, Kan., to present their ideas to company executives.  Each team’s representative gave a 30-minute presentation.

“The presentations were so well done and the presenters did a marvelous job,” Lyon said.  “The comments from the Value Place executives were positive, all commenting that the students were very professional and well rehearsed, not to mention very knowledgeable about their designs.”

Garibay said the executive team was impressed by the students’ creativity and commitment to the project.  

“The students and Melinda put a lot of time and dedication into this project,” she said. “Their presentations were professional and polished. These seniors will make a very smooth transition to the workforce and after a few years of practical experience will be able to make their mark in the design world.”  

Smith also was excited about the OSU students’ work.

“I am very proud and honored to be an OSU graduate today,” she said after hearing the presentations.  

The Value Place executives selected the winning team based on the project’s “fit for client,” durability, functionality, design and budget.  Garibay said there are elements in each design that Value Place would like to incorporate in the final redesign of the guest rooms.

“I could tell they were very pleased and very impressed,” Lyon said.  “It was a difficult decision for them.”

The first place team received a $2,500 prize and included Meagan Humbolt (Owasso), Kerri Short (Edmond), Kelly Swaim (Edmond), Erin Courtney (Sapulpa), Emily Young (Tulsa) and Cheryl Dillard (Stillwater). The second place team earned $1,500, the third place team was awarded $1,000 and teams in fourth and fifth place received $250 per team.

“This was a great experience for the students,” Lyon said.  “They were challenged and really stepped up with designs that met the Value Place requests while keeping the Value Place guests’ health, safety and welfare in mind in all their decisions.”

Ravi Naidoo, managing director of Interactive Africa in Cape Town, South Africa, is slated to speak to Oklahoma State University students and the public in a presentation titled “Creativity & Design as Vehicles for Transforming a Nation” on March 25 at 3:30 p.m. in the Student Union Little Theater on the OSU-Stillwater campus.

Sponsored by the OSU School of Entrepreneurship, the OSU CIE Scholars, and the OSU Entrepreneurship Club, the event is open to the public and is intended to bring inspiration to people of all ages.

“Ravi is simply an amazing speaker. His experiences and perspectives about how creativity and design can change an entire nation has huge implications for Oklahoma and OSU,” said Michael Morris, professor and head of the OSU School of Entrepreneurship.

In addition to founding Interactive Africa, Naidoo is the founder of an incredibly successful international design conference, the Design Indaba, and has done everything from help launch the bid for the World Cup to put the first African in outer space.

"For people who see places like Africa as a hopeless cause, Ravi is a voice of optimism, hope and change,” Morris said. “He sees an exciting future, and his helping to create that future through creativity, design, and communication.”

(STILLWATER, Okla. – March 12, 2010) The Oklahoma State University Alumni Association is proud to announce the recipients of the 2009-2010 Outstanding Seniors award. The award recognizes students who distinguish themselves through academic achievement; campus and community activities; academic, athletic or extra-curricular honors or awards; scholarships and work ethic during their time at Oklahoma State University.

After reviewing their applications, the Alumni Association Student Awards and Selection Committee met with the 41 Seniors of Significance that were selected in the fall of 2009 and selected 13 of them to receive this prestigious honor.

A public banquet honoring the 2009-2010 Outstanding Seniors will be held April 26 at 6 p.m. at the ConocoPhillips OSU Alumni Center.  Tickets for the banquet will go on sale on April 1 and can be purchased by contacting Frankie Baptista at 405.744.8837.

The 2009-2010 Outstanding Seniors are:

Stacey Brandhorst
College of Arts & Sciences
Major:  Public Relations and Spanish

Brady Brewer
College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources
Major:  Agricultural Economics and Accounting

Race Clark
College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology
Major: Chemical Engineering

Billy Collins
College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology
Major: Chemical Engineering

Manny Cortez
College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology
Major: Mechanical Engineering

Jared Crain
College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources
Major:  Plant and Soil Sciences

Renee Hale
College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology
Major: Chemical Engineering

Tyler Powell
College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources
Major:  Agribusiness

Travis Schnaithman
College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources
Major:  Agribusiness

Kayla Spalvieri
College of Education
Major: Elementary Education

Sadie Stockdale
College of Arts and Sciences
Major:  Political Science

Jared Whittington
College of Arts and Sciences
Major:  Applied Sociology

Hayley Zimmerman
Spears School of Business
Major:  International Business and Spanish