TUESDAY
SEPTEMBER 30, 2014 VOLUME 104 ISSUE 22
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Professor offers new sociological perspective on rock ‘n’ roll By Nicholas Laughlin NEWS REPORTER
each of these businesses really shines through their signage.” Salon Thairapy is one of the businesses making use of the grant. However, owner Suzanne Riley said that she uses the money as a tool to help her launch her business, which opened its doors four months ago, rather than merely freshening up the look of the salon. Equipped with neon green lettering, Thairapy’s sign boasts a large pair of rustic scissors to
In his award-winning book, sociology professor Joseph Kotarba looks at the way rock and roll is embedded in people’s lives. Kotarba won the Charles Horton Cooley Award for Outstanding book for his work “Baby Boomer Rock ‘n’ Roll Fans.” The Charles Horton Cooley Award is given annually by the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction (SSSI). The award is used to honor an author for a book that represents an important contribution to the perspective of symbolic interaction. The committee considered a range of outstanding books and articles, demonstrating the diversity and creativity of scholars working in the interactionist perspective. “I chose rock and roll because I have been a pop music fan my whole life,” Kotarba said. “No one was covering, in a very sociology way, the very first generation of rock and roll fans—the baby boomer generation.” Kotarba’s book details the many facets of personalities intimately linked with music as the baby boomer generation ages, said Eugene Halton, committee chair for the Cooley award and sociology professor at Notre Dame. “Baby Boomers are complex in the way they enjoy their music,” Kotarba said. “Many journalists and scholars of the 1960s and 1970s thought the Baby Boomers would ‘outgrow’ rock and roll music and move toward more adult-style music. That didn’t happen that easily.” It was important to examine how Baby Boomers continue to use rock and roll or pop music more generally as a source of meaning to help make sense of everyday life, Kotarba said. “(Kotarba) reveals the many ways in which the music remains as both a resource and mirror of (Baby Boomers’) lives,” Halton said. The Rolling Stones and Van Morrison are important to the spiritual experience of men from Kotarba’s generation, he said. “Katy Perry is also one of my favorites,” Kotarba said. “Katy Perry is a lot of things. She represents what is going on in pop music, and she is almost like having a daughter. She is someone that you can identify with, unlike a lot of other female performers.”
See AWNINGS, Page 2
See KOTARBA, Page 2
DENISE CATHEY ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR The Main Street Program is compensating downtown stores like Thairapy by paying for their new signfronts.
Downtown signage revamped through Main Street Program By Anna Herod NEWS REPORTER
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ain Street Program’s sign and awning grant has aided 19 businesses in the San Marcos Main Street district. Under this program, businesses can apply to have an investment in a new sign or awning matched. Using the grant, businesses can receive up to $2,000. In previous years, the avail-
able fund for the grant was only $4,700, but city councilmembers secured an additional $15,000 for this year, said Councilman Jude Prather, Place 2. The additional funding was a means of reimbursing businesses for the negative impact construction has had as well as making the downtown area pedestrian-friendly, he said. “Our goal is to help downtown businesses through revitalization, economic restructuring and promotion,”
said Kayli Head, Main Street Coordinator. “The grant is just a small way that we, as a city, can help businesses improve the look and feel of downtown.” Improving the main street district’s atmosphere is important, Head said. “The look and feel of downtown has an impact on tourism, (and) it has an impact on the feeling you get that makes you want to shop here,” Head said. “Our businesses have really stepped up their sign game, and the individual character of
UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY
Student Center mechanical Lack of department chair system improvements to term limit causes concern total $15-18 million By Mariah Simank NEWS REPORTER
By Anna Herod NEWS REPORTER Before the year is over, $15 to 18 million worth of mechanical system improvements will be made to the LBJ Student Center to bring the building up to code. The improvements will mostly be unseen to students but include making sure the lighting systems are not fire hazards and putting in new smoke alarms, said Jack Rahmann, LBJ Student Center director. Rahmann said he is currently working in conjunction with other university officials to find an architectural firm to collaborate with. He hopes they will create a concept to renovate and expand the LBJ center for students in the years to come. These plans will require a slight increase in the student center fee, but the amount that will be raised will remain unknown until the logistics of the project are worked out. “We need a building that can not only accommodate all of the different needs of the students, but beyond that, it is also an important facility because it’s the ‘first impression’ building,” Rahmann said. “This is the first place at Texas State that prospective students normally come to with their parents. We want this building to leave them feeling like Texas State is the place to be.” Although these mechanical improvements are necessary and
unavoidable, expansion and renovation of the center is still being discussed, he said. “Right now we’re starting by looking at our core values here at the university,” Rahman said. “This stage is all about determining where we are at now and where we want to be concerning the student center.” Among some of the considerations for changes to the center are a more central entrance way as well as transparency. “If you think about how the center is now, when you walk in all you see is a stairwell,” Rahmann said. “All of the offices are lining the perimeter, and all of the student traffic is in the center. That’s a huge mistake architecturally.” If the visual were more transparent, the 22,000 visitors per day would be less confused upon entering the building, he said. “All of the offices should be in the center, and the students should have the most beautiful view of the campus,” Rahmann said. “Transparency would also allow students to be able to look up and see where everything is at.” Ultimately, renovation of and expansion to the center will be up to the students, Rahmann said. Officials at the center are actively planning to distribute surveys to provide students with the opportunity to give their input in order to make sure every dollar is spent smartly, he said.
The lack of limit on the number of years department chairs can serve at Texas State has some questioning the value of the system. Each depar tment in the university has a chair who is a faculty member assigned by the dean to manage classes and faculty. The length of time these members have held their positions varies greatly, with some
keeping their jobs as long as 25 years, said Dr. Cynthia Opheim, associate provost of Academic Affairs. “We have no term limits on chairs, so we can have chairs in place for as little as three years, or sometimes it’s 25 years or longer,” Opheim said. Duane Knudson has been the Health and Human Performance department chair for the past five years. Knudson said department chairs are among the most important positions in a university.
“Ultimately, they are the gobetween the administration that wants to move the institution and address large strategic issues related to the university and all of the external factors that force universities to react certain ways and the faculty that are the guardians of the curriculum that do the teaching and the research,” Knudson said. “The chairs are sort of where the rubber hits the road between those two major bodies.”
See SOCIOLOGY, Page 2
DENISE CATHEY ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Susan B. Day, chair of Sociology, teaches her Intro to Sociology class Sept. 26 at UAC. Day has been the Sociology chair for 17 years.
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