News | Santa Fe College | Gainesville, FL

Jazz Up Spring - Free Jazz Concert April 1

Jazz The 3rd Annual "Jazz Up Spring" is hosted on Thursday, April 1 in the E Building Auditorium, starting at 7 p.m. This year's concert features Steve Bingham directing the Santa Fe Big Band, Jazz Combo, Rhythm and Blues, and the Santa Fe Swing Choir under the direction of Lynn Sandefur.

The groups will be performing and singing jazz and blues standards: "April in Paris" as performed by the Count Basie Orchestra, "Take the A-Train," "They Can Never Take that Away from Me," and "Spain" by Chick Corea are only a few of the great standards featured.

There will be a bake sale in the auditorium lobby sponsored by the Musicians United club to raise funds for their annual spring tour.

The concert is free, but donations are accepted.

For more information, contact Steve Bingham or Alora Haynes, 395-5296.

Spring Community Education Registration Starts March 17

Online Spring Community Education registration begins Wednesday, March 17. Phone and mail-in registration begins Monday, March 22. Classes begin the week of April 10.

For phone and walk-in registrations, our office hours are 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. and our phone number is 395-5193. If you're registering online please visit our website.

Here are a few of our new classes we are offering for spring:

Advanced Clutter Club
Lunchtime Hatha Yoga
Cross Creek: World of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Delicious Hor's D'Oeuvres
Running Your first Marathon
Health Opportunities: For 50+
Stained Glass Mosaics
Easy Meditations for Golfers

For more information, contact Betsy Albury at 395-5189.

Respiratory Care Open House, March 16

The Respiratory Care students will be hosting an open house on Tuesday, March 16 in W-49 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The general public and SF students are invited to participate in hands on procedures similar to what therapists perform in the hospital setting.

SF's 18-month program prepares students to enter this exciting Health Care field. Salaries range from $36,000 to $43,897 (source: Salary.com).

Respiratory therapists are in high demand and may work in home care, hospital care, critical care, OR, ER, Life Flight, Pulmonary Function Labs, Bronchoscopy labs, asthma clinics, hyperbaric chambers, equipment sales, and pulmonary health research. Specialty areas include neonatal,pediatric, and adult. Opportunities are available locally and nationally.

Come and learn more about this exciting career opportunity.

For more information about the program or the open house, contact Paul Stephan.

Dance Theatre of Santa Fe Featured in American Dance Festival Gala

"summertime," a modern dance work by Rodney Brown, Artistic Director of Dance at Santa Fe College, was selected out of works performed by 45 southeastern colleges, for inclusion in the gala performance at the American College Dance Festival Association at host campus Middle Tennessee State University.

Twelve dances were featured in the gala; the SF College Dance Program (Dance Theatre of Santa Fe) had the distinction of being the opening number and the only two-year dance program in the gala.

Brown is Santa Fe's newest full-time faculty in Dance. He comes to SF from Michigan University where he received his MFA in Dance/Choreography and Performance. His choreography has been featured all over the world, including at the Danza Italia and with the Dayton Contemporary Dance Theatre. He is an up and coming choreographer whose works tell a story, many times with social relevance.

"summertime" is a reflection of the male dance world in the late 80s when AIDS was taking the lives of many male dancers in NYC. The piece is riveting and powerful. The judges at ACDFA were moved by it, and called it "...fierce, dynamic, edgy, with strong images, quite a journey and with a great use of stillness."

Congratulations!

"Elements of Style" One Night Only

8 p.m. Saturday, March 20 in the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

"Elements of Style 2010" is the Santa Fe College Dance department's annual performance and showcases Dance Theatre of Santa Fe in two semesters of dances. This year, the performance will also introduce Rodney Brown, the new assistant professor and artistic director of Dance.

Elements 2010 boasts four of Brown's new works including "Odd Bird merrikore," which features a live accompaniment of jazz great Keith Jarrett's "somewhere over the rainbow," and "summertime," a work for men that recently represented Santa Fe College at American College Dance Festival Association's regional dance concert in Murfreesboro, Tenn. (in photo).

"summertime" was selected as one of the top dances for the festival's gala performance -- from among works performed by dance departments at 45 colleges -- and is the running for a national performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in April.

Other choreographers include Fine Arts Chair Alora Haynes, Sonia Calero, SF alumni, and New York choreographer Brian Brooks.

"Elements of Style 2010" is an evening of strong, diverse dance. The evening has range and depth, from Hip Hop to classical to comedy -- there is something for everyone.

Tickets are $12 at the door; free for SF students. For more information contact Rodney Brown at 352-395-5674.

2010 Equinox Moon Celebration at Santa Fe College March 20

Moon The Kika Silva Pla Planetarium and the Natural Sciences Department at Santa Fe College, along with the Alachua Astronomy Club, will present the 2010 Equinox Moon Celebration, 3 to 11 p.m. Saturday, March 20.

There will be special moon lectures, telescopes to view the moon, moon arts and crafts, Create-a-Crater activity, a meteorite display, free moon items, free moon photos, astronomical art, and the debut of a new planetarium music show. For this special event all planetarium shows will be half price.

All activities are free, except for the planetarium shows, which are half-price.

For more information about this event, please contact Professor Sally Hoffman, 352-395-5354 or sally.hoffman@sfcollege.edu.

For more on the planetarium shows, contact Planetarium Coordinator James Albury at 352-395-5381 or james.albury@sfcollege.edu.

Santa Fe College Hosts "Plus Fifty" Program Fair for Career Changers

With unemployment hovering nationally around 10 percent, more and more of the workforce is looking for new directions. For those considering a career change, Santa Fe College offers its second "Plus Fifty" program fair from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 23 at the Northwest campus in Building R, room 01.

This two-hour event is "designed to help older workers transition back into college due to downsizing," said Sheila Lucas, director of Health Sciences Counseling. The event will also help those who may not be looking for new careers, but instead wish to pursue new challenges as they near retirement age.

On hand will be advisors who can talk about more than 50 different career courses and programs, as well as admission and financial aid representatives. This one-stop shopping design will allow attendees to walk away with an excellent idea of what their options are.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, please call Sheila Lucas at 352-395-5734 or email sheila.lucas@sfcollege.edu.

Two Comedic One-Acts to Lighten Your Heart this Spring!

Santa Fe College's Fine Arts department is rolling out two plays for its spring production. "Dog Lady" and "The Cuban Swimmer" will be performed back-to-back with a short intermission in between, 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, March 25-27, with an additional performance at 2 p.m. on Saturday in E Building Auditorium.

Each play chronicles the events surrounding two women athletes. In "Dog Lady," a Mexican-American community, based out of an east LA barrio, watches a young woman as she prepares for a marathon. The 30-minute performance is primarily a comedy. "The Cuban Swimmer," is more of a comedy/drama that tells the story of a Cuban family following one daughter as she competes in a swimming race from a California beach to Catalina Island.

General admission tickets are $5; free admission for Santa Fe students, faculty and staff, seniors, and children under 12.

For more information, please call the director, Kathy Byrne, at 352-213-1909 or the SF Fine Arts Department at 352-395-5296.

MERIANS, SAINTS BLAST DAYTONA FOR SECOND STRAIGHT MFC WIN, 11-5

SF BASEBALL

Gainesville, FL - The Santa Fe (12-10, 2-3 MFC) offense was unstoppable on Wednesday afternoon against Daytona State College as they piled up 11 runs on 20 hits to win their second straight MFC game. BOX SCORE

Gary Merians (2-3, 2.47 ERA) was just as brilliant on the mound, keeping the Falcons batters off balance all game, shutting them out over seven innings, surrendering only four hits while striking out six.

The Saints opened the scoring with two runs in the bottom of the fourth on RBI singles by Joe Clouse and Ricky Claudio for a 2-0 lead.

SF tacked on three more runs in the sixth inning on a homerun by Jeff Moyer and RBI doubles by Claudio and Austin Lawrence to push the lead to 5-0.

SAINTS WIN BIG AT NTC TOURNAMENT, 13-0 AND 6-0

SF FASTPITCH

Clermont, FL - The FCCAA #2 Santa Fe Saints (22-4) were never challenged at the National Training Center Tournament in Clermont on Tuesday as they rolled 13-0 over Rochester College (IL) and 6-0 over Brevard CC.

Jasmine Warren earned the win against Rochester College, pitching three no hit innings, striking out five. Colesa Lazar pitched the final two innings, striking out two.

SF rolled up 13 runs on 13 hits, including homeruns by Jaimee Vega (pictured), Gia Tomossone and Britany Doty and doubles by Ashley Peterson, Taylor Pangilinan, Lawna Hunter and Colesa Lazar.

Tomossone finished game one 3-for-3 with a HR, three RBI and two runs, Hunter was 2-for-3 with a double and two runs and Pangilinan was 2-for-2 with three runs scored and a double.

Two SF College Students Killed in Iraq Are Honored by "Operation Support Florida Soldiers"

A project to honor Sgt. Travis Rivero and Sgt. Jeffrey Mattison Wershow, two Santa Fe College students who died in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, has won overwhelming support from the SF College Senate, Student Senate, Career Service and the college family at large.

The Operation Support Florida Soldiers project will send "care packages" to the redeployed 2nd Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment which is part of the 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Florida Army National Guard. Wershow and Rivero were attached to this battalion, and many of the soldiers who served with them have been redeployed.

SF students, faculty and staff will donate a variety of personal care items, nonperishable foods, cold remedies, books, magazines, games, electronic discs - to name just a few. Personal letters to the soldiers are also welcome.

Operation Support Florida Soldiers runs from April until December of this year, when the deployment is expected to end. Packages will be sent each month to the members of Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta and Headquarters companies of the 2/124th Infantry Regiment. The unit is presently in Ft. Hood, Texas and leaves for Iraq and Kuwait the middle of March.

Gen. Mike Fleming, Assistant Adjutant General of the Florida Army National Guard, will visit Santa Fe 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 3, to give the Student Senate his personal thanks for supporting the project.

When they were killed, Wershow was in his second semester at Santa Fe and Rivero had transferred to the University of South Florida. The Jeffrey Mattison Wershow Memorial Scholarship is awarded to a current or former member of the United States Armed Forces with an honorable discharge who plans to pursue a degree at Santa Fe College.

The project was initiated by Anne Marie Mattison, mother of Jeffrey Mattison Wershow. For more information call her at 352.381.3828 or e-mail annemarie.mattison@sfcollege.edu.

RUE Grant Awardees Announced

The Research in Undergraduate Education Workgroup (RUE) awarded $500 grants to Beatriz Gonzalez, Matthew Kail, and Audra Rauner as part of its Provost's Research as Opportunity (PRO) and Provost's Research as Teaching (PRAT) Grants program. PRO grants support undergraduate research mentored by SF faculty. PRAT grants fund SF faculty development of research‐oriented activities in their classes.

Gonzalez, Associate Professor, Biology, will use her PRAT Grant to fund travel related to revising the current Core 1 Biology Laboratory to add scientific research exercises.

Kail, who is mentored by Jerry Johnston, Associate Professor, Biology, will use PRO Grant funds to purchase equipment related to his study of the population ecology of the Florida snapping turtle in the Santa Fe River.

Rauner, who is mentored by Marc Shaboz, Associate Professor, Digital Media, will use PRO Grant funds to participate in the 48-Hour Film Festival at the Tallahassee Film Festival.

RUE was formed to encourage faculty to incorporate research into the curriculum and to recognize the research endeavors of faculty and students. The next deadline for PRO and PRAT Grant Applications is October 1, 2010.

SF CVT Student Wins National Scholarship

Andy Andresen Abraham (Andy) Andresen, a current student in the Cardiovascular Technology Program at Santa Fe Collefe, has been awarded the 2010 Alan D. Waggoner Sonographer Student Scholarship from the American Society of Echocardiography.

This is an accomplishment worth recognition since it is awarded to only five individuals in the nation. The selection committee states in the notification letter that they were "impressed with the number of highly qualified candidates for this year's awards and is pleased to recognize Andy's outstanding academic accomplishments."

Andy will receive a $1,000 tuition scholarship, free registration at the annual ASE Scientific Sessions in San Diego, Calif., and $500 toward travel expenses, and a free year's subscription to ASE's monthly journal, "The Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography."

All of the faculty of the CVT Program would like to congratulate Andy on this impressive award. Andy is the first Santa Fe College CVT student to receive this national scholarship.

SF Digital Media Student Competing in Tallahassee Film Festival Contest

Audra Hot on the heels of winning three American Advertising "Addy" awards for her television advertisements, SF Digital Media student Audra Rauner has been awarded the SFC Provost's Research Opportunity (PRO) grant to compete in the Tallahassee Film Festival's 48 Hour film competition.

The $500 grant was given by Santa Fe College's Research in Undergraduate Education Work Group (RUE). RUE was formed to facilitate the institutionalization of research in undergraduate education at SFC. The group seeks ways to encourage faculty to incorporate research into the curriculum and to recognize the research endeavors of faculty and students.

Audra and her team will travel to Tallahassee on March 19. The five-person crew will produce a 5-minute independent film over the next 48 hours. The team will only receive the theme and be given a prop that must be incorporated into the film when they register on the 19th. This will assure that original content will be produced during the competition. Once the film is completed it will be placed online at Tallahassee.com and viewers can vote on their favorites. Winners will be announced during the Tallahassee Film Festival, April 8-11.

Digital Media Associate Professor Marc Shahboz, MFA, will serve as Audra's faculty mentor for the project. He will oversee her preparations for the competition and monitor her progress online as the team produces their film.

"Audra has a great deal of talent and the skills to do well in the competition," said Shahboz. "I am very excited to see what she will produce during the 48 hours. Santa Fe, without a doubt, will be well represented!"

For more information about SF's Digital Media program, visit the program website.

Tallahassee Film Festival website

Film Festival 48 Hour Competition webpage

Audra's Award-winning PSA for LifeSouth - YouTube video

Metal Works Exhibition in the President's Gallery

Metal Works Show Please join the SF Gallery in welcoming Patricia Telesco, Santa Fe Jewelry, Metal Works and Art Professor, along with current and former students Karen Autrey, Sandra Jahn and Suzanne Sentz, in their show of metal works.

The President's gallery is open during the college's regular business hours, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. weekdays, on the second floor of the Alan J. Robertson Administration Building. The show runs through March 23.

For more information, please go online or contact Gallery Director Jayné Grant at 395-5464.

SF Digital Media Student Produces Promotional Video for New Film Festival

SF student Muriel Akamatsu said she was intrigued when representatives of the Hippodrome State Theatre and GoGreenNation.org visited her Interactive Media Production class, taught by Wesley Lindberg, requesting promotional assistance for the Gainesville Environmental Film and Arts Festival.

The festival, planned for March 19-28, will celebrate all aspects of environmental preservation efforts through film, art, poetry, workshops and networking.

"As I reviewed the information provided by the organizers, I realized that a 30-second clip was sorely needed-and soon!," said Akamatsu, a nontraditional student who holds an Ed.D. from West Virginia University, an MA from the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and a BA from the University of Missouri, College of Arts and Sciences.

She drafted a document with a timeline to which the Digital Media faculty and the festival organizers agreed, and within a week she was scripting and shooting video.

"The process was a wonderful learning experience," Akamatsu said. "I produced several approaches to the promotion, which the class critiqued. Then, as I was working on my farm, a bold robin looked me in the eye before it flew off. I stopped, took a deep breath, and thought how very wonderful nature can be. I drafted a completely new script with nature as the focus."

Lindberg and Prof. Bonita Dewiliby, along with Jorge Ibanez, Coordinator of the Digital Media Technology program, reviewed the "nature" version. After incorporating their suggestions, Akamatsu loaded her video onto YouTube and the final refinements began.

Since festival organizers decided to honor the memory of the late local nature photographer, Dominick Martino, Akamatsu swapped out some of her video footage for his beautiful nature images.

You can visit the festival's new website for details at www.GEFAF.org.

You can see some of Akamatsu's work at www.drAKAMATSU.com.

And, of course, you can learn more about the IMP program online.

"What's so great about coming back into graphic design after the R&R days -- rapidograf pens and rubber cement -- is the pure magic of the digital world! ," enthused Akamatsu. "The entire creative process was digital -- the video, the images, the film-editing and rendering, communications by e-mail and final file-transfer of the completed movies."

Spring 2010 Leadership Series: "Indispensable Qualities of Leadership"

Leadership graphic Students, faculty and staff, and the general public, are invited to attend any or all of these seminars. If you attend the entire series, you'll receive the Leadership Institute Seminar Certificate. The presenter is Dr. Bruce Tucker, Coordinator of the Leadership Institute. The seminars are free.

The leader is driven with a sense of purpose

Session 1: If an archer has no target, then no one can criticize him or her for missing it. But, success will be the result of random chance, or pure luck, at best. Leaders cannot depend upon luck. Every leader mush have a purpose, a goal, or a clearly defined target.

Offered at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 3 in S-326/327.

The leader is not a spectator, but takes initiative

Offered at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 17 in S-326/327.

The leader maintains a positive attitude and perspective

Offered at 2 p.m. Wednesday, March 3 in S-326/327.

The leader has developed a higher and more consistent E.Q.

Offered at 2 p.m. Wednesday March 24 in S-326/327

The leader understands the global shift in the leadership paradigm

Offered at 2 p.m. Wednesday, March 31 in S-326/327

National Ranking Lists Santa Fe College Among Top Associate Degree Producers

CC Week Report Logo Santa Fe College is the 6th ranked producer of associate's degrees in the nation among two-year institutions, according to Community College Week's 2009 listing of Associate Degree and Certificate Producers. Among all institutions awarding associate degrees, including four-year institutions, Santa Fe ranks 12th in the nation.

The rankings are based on a study of degrees and certificates awarded by two- and four-year colleges during the 2007-2008 academic year. Santa Fe College awarded 2,710 total associate degrees in all disciplines.

"The ultimate test of a college or university is student success and for Santa Fe to be ranked in the top 10 in graduates is a quality ranking for the faculty and staff," said SFC President Jackson Sasser.