Scholars Week showcases student and faculty prowess

Nashville session guitarist Bryan Sutton gave an interview and presented a demonstration to students and faculty.

MTSU Scholars Week 2015 featured prominent speakers and never-before-seen demonstrations to campus while highlighting award-winning research posters created by students and faculty.

The College of Mass Communication kicked off the week with an interview and demonstration by popular Nashville session guitarist Bryan Sutton. Sutton explored the world of session recordings with a group of 60 recording industry and music students in Mass Comm’s Room 103. Sutton’s visit was also a part of the ongoing American Guitar series sponsored by the Center for Popular Music.

David Griesinger

Audio guru Dr. David Griesinger offered a fascinating look at “Acoustics and Learning” throughout his daylong teaching excursion in both recording industry classes and lecture halls. His talk on recording, perception and room acoustics engaged audio production students and faculty with sound bites and examples of mechanisms the ear and brain use to perceive sound. Griesinger is holds a doctorate in physics and independently developed one of the first digital reverberation devices called the Lexicon 224.

Chuck Arlund’s “Hue.” Film capture, pigment print.

During Mass Comm’s Scholars Day, posters displaying creativity and research peppered the building’s Main Street, with tables showcasing the work of MFA, Recording Industry, Electronic Media Communication and Journalism students and faculty. Later, a panel of photography professors, moderated by Nashville Arts Magazine Editor Paul Polycarpoupanel, discussed the MTSU Photo Faculty Exhibit on display in the Baldwin Photographic Gallery. The panel featured professors Chris Harris, Tom Jimison, Jackie Heigle, Jonathan Trundle, Chuck Arlund, John Collins and Shannon Randol discussing their photography specialties, techniques and inspirations. The faculty photo exhibit was featured in Baldwin Photo Gallery from March 2 through April 9.

Toward the end of the week, Electronic Media Communication screened student and faculty works in the Student Union Theater, featuring a compilation of student projects called First Look. The showing included Professor Bob Pondillo’s award-winning short film Happy New Year, Mr. Kates, Professor Kevin McNulty’s animated shorts Tethered and Coffee, and student documentaries filmed in Paris during MTSU’s Study Abroad program. Later, awards were presented at the Scholars Week 2015 University Wide-Poster and Performance Exposition in the Student Union Ballroom, where the following winners were announced:

Graduate 1st Place

Tyler Spratt (Recording Industry), Bill Crabtree (Faculty)

A Comprehensive Study of the Fundamentals of Mixing Music

Graduate 2nd Place

Truman Lusson (Recording Industry), Daniel Pfeifer (Faculty)

Genre-Oriented Music Production and Mixing

Graduate 3rd Place

Ryan Talbot (Recording Industry), Matt Foglia (Faculty)

The Mixing Engineer’s Guide to Surround Sound

First place posters were on exhibit in the Walker Library. For more information on MTSU Scholars Week, please click here.

Jackie Heigle’s wet plate colloidal process demonstrated in her “Photography Student of the 21st Century” collection.