Last spring, the Center for Teaching and Learning’s second annual Creative Canvas Course Contest (C-4) saw students nominate Canvas courses from almost every department that they felt were intuitive and easy to navigate, provided convenient access to course information and materials, and offered resources and activities that helped them succeed.
Of the nine courses were selected, one was by Kalen Larson:
* FA3650, Assistant Professor Kalen Larson (VPA)
Associate Professor Patricia Helsel is directing Red Jacket 1913, a special production in collaboration with the Calumet Theatre. This play uniquely presents the history and conflict surrounding the 1913 copper strike, focusing on one family’s struggles. While fictional, Red Jacket 1913 is based entirely on historic events.
Dennis Kerwin, former VPA faculty, heads the cast comprised mostly of community members, while Jonah Mueller, a Tech sound design major, and Dollcie Webb, majoring in theatre and electronic media performance, are both involved in the play’s production.
Performances are tomorrow and Friday at 7:30 p.m. Contact the Calumet Theatre box office for tickets at 337-2610.
Associate professor Kalen Larson (VPA) will be an Instructor for the TOP Flight workshop hosted by the North American Association of Flying Effects Directors held in DeKalb, Illinois, Aug. 13-16. This four-day workshop covers topics ranging from designing performer flying effects systems to choreography techniques.
Two Visual and Performing Arts majors, Josh Maiville and Devin Miller, will be part of the popular summer series, “America’s Got Talent,” broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall in New York this week.
They will be riggers and flying-effects operators for Mothmen Dance, an aerial performance group created by On the FLY Productions–the production company that partnered with Michigan Tech last year to produce the flying extravaganza, “Beautiful: A Cirque-Tale of How the Butterfly Grew Her Wings.”
Maiville and Miller were riggers and operators for the productions of Beautiful, and Maiville performed some flying stunts on stage.
On the FLY was so impressed with Michigan Tech’s students that the production company invited several of them to work with Mothmen, according to Associate Professor Kalen Larson (VPA). Michigan Tech is one of the only schools teaching performer flying, Larson said.
The live broadcast of “America’s Got Talent” is scheduled for 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 12, on Charter Cable channels 6 and 785. An elimination round will follow at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 13. See the audition.
This is not the first time Michigan Tech has been represented at Radio City. Ken Showler, a 2007 Tech graduate in sound design, was a designer with 7th Sense for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular 2011. He received an Excellence in Live Design Award for that work.
The Advanced Motor Sports teams proudly displayed their vehicles on a flat bead trailer while Husky Pep Band alumni pulled out their old stripes and joined current students to play traditional Pep Bad parade tunes all for the DTE Energy Cherry Royale Parade.
In Print
J. Sterkenburg, M. Jeon and C. Plummer were published in M. Kurosu (Ed). Human-Computer Interaction, Part II, HCII 2014, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) 8511 for their paper, “Auditory emoticons: Iterative design and acoustic characteristics of emotional auditory icons and earcons,” pp. 633-640. The paper was published by Springer International Publishing Switzerland.
DOI
10.1007/978-3-319-07230-2_60
Print ISBN
978-3-319-07229-6
Online ISBN
978-3-319-07230-2
The next generation
Michigan Tech holds commencement
Nearly 1,000 graduates were honored at Michigan Technological University’s Spring Commencement Saturday with 747 students receiving bachelor’s degrees, 203 master’s degrees and 38 Ph.D.s.
Student speaker Collin Doerr-Newton, a sound design major who was chosen to speak after submitting and reciting his speech to a panel, likened Michigan Tech to a piece of music. Originally from Lansing, Doerr-Newton said that he frequently encounters the idea that everyone at Michigan Tech is the same. They are, he agreed, just as much as they aren’t.
Read more at the Mining Gazette, by Meagan Stilp.
Watch the YouTube Video: Michigan Tech Spring Commencement 2014, Featuring Collin Doerr-Newton
The Department of Visual and Performing Arts is pleased to present the results of the 2014 faculty-voted awards for students:
Art – Diana McNease
Music – Kevin Rocheleau
Sound – Tom Conran
Theatre – Paige Borel
All Arts – Kevin Gray
Women of Promise – Jamie Aneshansel and Renata Putzig
This summer, the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program will fund 23 students from across the University with funds from the Vice President for Research and the Honors Institute. The total funding for the program this year is $80,500.
Among the recipients is Audio Production major Paul Kirby, working with Christopher Plummer on “Capturing the Soundscapes of Point Abbaye.”
With the sun shining and the mounds of snow disappearing, it is starting to feel like spring–just in time for Earth Day. Today is Earth Day and Michigan Tech is celebrating with activities all week long, including a Lake Superior Celebration and a rainforest reptile show.
The Lake Superior Celebration, from 6 to 8 p.m., at Michigan Tech’s Great Lakes Research Center, will feature hands-on activities, a new PBS video on the Great lakes Stewardship Initiative, school-community projects, local foods, “Wildflowers of the UP” by Bob Wild and the “Water’s Edge Art Exhibit.”
A new PBS video will be aired at the celebration. It features local participants in the Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative. The event is free and open to the public and all are welcome. The Lake Superior Celebration is sponsored by the Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative and Michigan Tech’s Western UP Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education.