Faculty Art Exhibition

VP Finalists Interviewed on Campus

Two finalists for the positions of Western’s vice president for university advancement will be interviewed on campus Jan. 20 and Jan. 24.

Both candidates have been asked to prepare a public presentation titled “Meeting the Challenge: The Role of Development, Alumni, and Public Relations/Marketing in Western’s Next Capital Campaign.” The campus is invited to those presentations.

The finalists and their presentation schedules are:

Jerry Pickman, Western’s director of development, at 2 p.m. Friday, Jan. 20 in the Kemper Recital Hall, inside Leah Spratt Hall.

Pickman has served as Western’s director of development since 2004. Prior to that, he was director of development at Benedictine College in Atchison from 2001 to 2004. Pickman has also worked at Atchison Products Inc., The Saint Francis Academy Inc. in Atchison, and the Atchison Juvenile Correctional Facility.

Pickman graduated from Western with a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice in 1985. He also received an Executive Master of Business Administration from Benedictine in 2001.

Dr. Jonathan Yordy, executive director of major gifts at Lewis University, at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 24 in Leah Spratt Hall room 203.

Dr. Yordy has served as Lewis’ executive director of major gifts since 2008. Previously, he worked as coordinator for public relations and fundraising at the University of Missouri-St. Louis from 2003 to 2008. He has also worked at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Washington State University and the State University of New York at Buffalo, and was a partner in Vivace Press.

Dr. Yordy received his Bachelor of Science in English education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1984 and his doctorate in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1997.

Dan Nicoson, Western’s current vice president for university advancement, will retire in June after eight years in the position.

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New Cinema Toolbox

The theatre and cinema program will display new equipment during an open house Tuesday, Jan. 24

New Cinema Equipment on Display at Open House

New equipment in the theatre and cinema program will give Western students a rare opportunity to get hands-on experience with the same tools cinema professionals use. Much of the new equipment will be displayed during an open house 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 24 in the Instructional Media Center studio, Hearnes Center room 150. It is free and open to the public.

“Very few cinema programs in the country will be able to match the opportunity we will provide students to work with this kind of equipment,” said Dallas Henry, assistant professor of theatre and cinema. “We’ve told students that ‘with this equipment, there’s nothing you can’t do: we have everything you need to make any shot you want.’”

Key pieces of equipment are 15 new high-definition cameras, new lighting equipment, new audio equipment and some items usually found only on movie sets, like a crane, a dolly track and a Steadicam. The new equipment complements the new Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Cinema degree program that will be made available in the fall.

“One of the cool things about our program is that students will pick up a camera starting in their freshman year, and will learn more and more skills as they go along,” Henry said. “By the time they graduate, they’ll have an impressive reel of work to give prospective employers that will showcase the variety of skills they’ve learned.”

One of Henry’s goals in the new program is to teach an advanced course that will actually produce a feature-length film over two semesters. The new equipment is being paid for by student fees in theatre and cinema courses.

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