This coming Saturday, we will celebrate the accomplishments of approximately thirty HSoM undergraduates and master's degree candidates who will receive their diplomas at the December Commencement ceremony. Then, the HSoM and much of the University will be very quiet till classes resume for the spring semester on January 17. Here's wishing everyone a joyous holiday season in these next weeks, with all best wishes for the new year 2017!
FACULTY AND STAFF BUSINESS
**I would recommend that faculty colleagues contact their students to remind them of the online student evaluation process, which remains open just through tomorrow, 12/9.
**Please mark your calendars for the January HSoM Faculty/Staff Retreat, scheduled for Thursday, January 12. We'll start the morning with refreshments at 9:30. 10 am - noon will include a conversation with Student Development staff regarding depression and a workshop facilitated by our colleague Reeves Shulstad on "difficult conversations." Our traditional potluck lunch will follow, and then we'll reconvene as necessary for a discussion of the dean's search and/or spring recruitment and scholarships.
In advance of the conversation with Student Development colleagues, please take some time (approximately 30 minutes) to review the Counseling Center's "Guidelines for talking with a student in distress" and complete their At Risk Training Reeves will also provide a short reading related to the "difficult conversations" workshop.
**As we did last year, we will collect donations from HSoM colleagues to provide to our custodial staff as "New Year Presents," which we'll distribute in mid-January. Please see Dean's Office staff if you'd like to contribute. We'll also provide opportunities for contributions at the January retreat.
**HSoM staff colleague Janet Seatz will collect coats and blankets for the annual ASU Coat and Blanket Drive. She'll put out a donation box in January, so please consider providing warm contributions for the drive.
**As a reminder, Chancellor Everts has announced the campus requirement that all faculty and staff participate in an online training module regarding interpersonal violence. Please complete the module prior to the December 16 deadline by following these instructions:
• Go to: http://www.everfi.com/login and click Register
• Under "Student/Learner," enter the Registration Code: 7b2e5c30 to create your EverFi Account
• Complete Part 1 of Haven for Faculty and Staff by December 16, 2016. This part takes about 45 minutes to complete, but it can be completed in multiple sittings.
• After 30-45 days you will receive an invitation to complete Part 2 of Haven for Faculty and Staff, which must be completed by February 17, 2017. This part takes about 10 minutes to complete.
EVENTS For complete listings of performances, including student degree recitals and details about live audio/video stream availability, please see the HSoM Calendar: https://music.appstate.edu/news-events/performance-calendar and http://music.appstate.edu/news-events/live-streams
Final exams end on Thursday, December 8.
The annual HSoM December Graduates Reception and Master's Hooding Ceremony will occur on Friday, December 9, at 3 pm.
The December Commencement ceremony for HSoM undergraduates and graduate students occurs Saturday, December 10, at 10 am, in the Holmes Convocation Center.
LOOKING AHEAD
The University is closed December 26-30 and January 2.
The University is closed January 16 for the MLK holiday.
The first day of classes for the spring 2017 semester is Tuesday, January 17.
KUDOS AND OTHER NEWS AND EVENTS
Thanks and congratulations go out to Steve Hopkins for coordinating our 24th annual Holiday Scholarship Concert; to Jay Jackson, Brent Bingham, the SCPA staff, and Kappa Kappa Psi for their work with logistics and other support; to Sigma Alpha Iota for the post-performance reception; to the numerous faculty members who conducted and/or prepared ensemble performances; and to the countless students who performed during the evening's festivities. By all measures, it was a tremendous success.
HSoM music theorist Bill Harbinson and former HSoM music theorist Gabe Fankhauser have published their co-authored music theory text Beyond Harmony: An Introduction to Analysis of Form and Structure in Music with Kendall-Hunt Publishing (Dubuque, Iowa).
HSoM music theorist Jennifer Snodgrass has been named a legacy finalist for he Grammy music educator award. She will automatically advance to semi-finalist round for the 2018 competition.
HSoM music theorist Jennifer Snodgrass has been award a University Research Council grant for 2017. Her grant will fund research for an upcoming pedagogy text entitled Teaching Music Theory: New Voices and Approaches, currently under review with Oxford University Press.
With best wishes as the fall 2016 semester comes to an end,
Bill
_____________________
William L. Pelto, Ph.D.
Dean, Hayes School of Music
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
828-262-3029
**If you'd like to have something included in future iterations of these announcements, please send me an email with "announcements" in the subject line. Please feel free to send me information about artists (HSoM colleagues and others) who will collaborate in faculty recitals. My listings here sometimes miss those details. I'll be happy to add family/personal announcements, too. Please submit announcements as pdf's or in plain text, unformatted (no special spacing, bullets, etc.). Please include hyperlinks as appropriate.
**Please send information about upcoming off-campus performances and presentations by faculty and students. I'll include them in this "HSoM On the Road..." section.