Content about American Association of State Colleges and Universities

1945

New this year: ALL registration for events will take place in the Stevens Alumni House. Before attending your first event, you must stop by the Alumni House to pick up your registration materials. Volunteers will be available if you would like to do a ‘drive thru’ registration. There will not be a registration table in the Student Center or any other location.

April Doshier embodies the call to service that is implicit in the liberal arts mission. A 2002 graduate with a bachelor of science in psychology, Doshier invested her required practicum hours at the Women’s Service and Family Resource Center in Chickasha. A founding member of the Feminist Collective on USAO’s campus, she worked tirelessly to organize campus activities as well as collaborating with the student services staff to make awareness regarding women’s issues and safety part of the Freshman Orientation curriculum.

The Lane Gift

Rechristened to honor a prominent Oklahoma family whose generous donations form the spine of its permanent collection, the Nesbitt Gallery celebrated the change with an inaugural reception on May 4.

“With their vision, Charles and Margôt Nesbitt made an indelible impression on the USAO story,” said USAO President John Feaver. “For this facility to bear their name is only appropriate.”

A generous pledge of $175,000 from OCW alumna Nan Willett and her husband John has set into motion the newest public art project on the campus of the University of Science and Arts — a larger-than-life bronze statue of one of the university’s most beloved graduates, Te Ata Fisher.

Individuals representing a number of state-wide arts organizations, donors and the university convened on Aug. 16 to build a consensus on the nature and scale of the project.

In an expansion of USAO’s symposia series, Civil War historian William C. Davis delivered the keynote address for the inaugural Summer History Lecture on June 19 in Te Ata Memorial Auditorium.

Davis’ lecture, titled The Summer of ‘62, focused on the critical events of 1862, including The Battle of Antietam, the photography of Matthew Brady and President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Local real estate leader and former city councilman Chris Mosley was sworn in on September 11 to the USAO Board of Regents. He will serve the remaining six years of a term left by Regent Teresa Adwan of Tulsa.

“I believe that higher education is a key to success in any community and the institution needs to be tightly connected to its community,” Mosley said.

ALUMS AND FRIENDS,

Fall classes are underway, the calendar is filled with great events and more national headlines are pointing people to Chickasha. I love this time of year!

If you’ve never read the Washington Monthly, you might want to get a copy of its fall College Rankings, which feature USAO for the first time ever.  This publication claims a unique perspective: “college rankings that ask not only what’s best for the student but also what’s best for the nation.”

Although much has been written and recorded on the life of Chickasaw storyteller Te Ata, USAO’s Kelly Brown is literally following in the footsteps of the Oklahoma College for Women alumna with a trip to Loon Island in New Hampshire. She visited the island in Oct. 2010 as part of her ongoing research into Te Ata’s life.

Brown is determined to explore places Te Ata visited and lived.  “Her love of geography got me interested.  She and I share similar things. She had a love of nature and a desire to be one with nature.”

Calling running for public office “one of the best experiences of my life,” Brittany Novotny, a 2002 sociology graduate from the University of Science and Arts, came back to the college in the fall to speak to USAO students during the first in a series of alumni speakers this fall.

USAO alumna Ashley Hyde has a longer-than average card list during the holidays. In addition to family and friends, her list includes more than 20,000 cards to VA hospitals and care centers throughout the United States.