In the News
Student regent
The Austin American-Statesman ran a front-page Metro section story on the Texas State University System’s newest regent, Texas State student Chris Covo. Chris is the third Texas State student to serve as student regent and was the Associated Student Government president last year. Read the story here.
Walt Whitman and the meteor procession
Physics professor Don Olson made national and international news again recently by identifying an unusual procession of meteors described in “Year of Meteors” in Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Olson and colleagues Russell Doescher of the physics faculty, English professor Marilynn Olson and honors program student Ava Pope published their findings in a recent edition of Sky & Telescope magazine. Read the university news release. The news was carried in dozens of media outlets in the United States and abroad, including the Los Angeles Times, the Toronto Star and Discovery News. Pope was interviewed by Under the Microscope for a feature on women in science.
Bill Wittliff and Lonesome Dove
The Southwestern Writers Collection at the Alkek Library received some very prominent press recently. Founding donor Bill Wittliff was the subject of an excellent story in the Dallas Morning News. Texas Monthly’s most recent edition devoted a large spread to the 25th anniversary of the publication of Lonesome Dove as well as the subsequent miniseries. Wittliff wrote the screenplay for the television miniseries and served as co-executive producer. The Southwestern Writers Collection houses the most extensive archive devoted to the production of that miniseries. Wittliff was interviewed for the story, as were collection curator Steven Davis and Mark Busby, director of Texas State’s Center for the Study of the Southwest. Although you cannot read the full Texas Monthly story online without subscribing, you can see the magazine cover devoted to Lonesome Dove. You can also view an online slide show.
Mega-floods and canyons
If you were around San Marcos, San Antonio or New Braunfels in July 2002, you probably remember some of the most catastrophic flooding in this region’s history. It was the only time in history that the spillway at Canyon Dam was breached and there was uncontrolled release from the Canyon Lake reservoir. That huge torrent of water carved a gorge below the dam that remains an impressive sight today. And the creation of that canyon took only three days. Geography associate professor Mark Fonstad, along with a colleague from Cal Tech, have studied that gorge and say it is teaching us new lessons about the way canyons are created, both on Earth and possibly on Mars. News of their recently published research has been carried in several media outlets, including U.S. News & World Report and Scientific American. Future coverage is expected in the Austin American-Statesman.
Creative writing faculty
Two members of our creative writing faculty have been featured prominently in news articles recently. A reading by Tim O’Brien was covered by the Austin American-Statesman. At the reading, O’Brien urged his audience to remember the lessons of the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.
Debra Monroe’s new book On the Outskirts of Normal: Forging a Family Against the Grain, was reviewed favorably in both the Austin American-Statesman and the San Antonio Express News.