LU Moment S2 Ep.5: Building LU spirit and a Greek tragedy

Introduction

Shelly Vitanza: Welcome to the LU Moment, thanks for listening. I'm Shelly Vitanza, the Director of Public Affairs at Lamar University. Each week we showcase the great events, activities, programs, projects, and people at Lamar University. February is Black History Month and this Friday we'll have a big celebration on campus honoring all African-American students who have had a 3.5 GPA for the last couple of semesters, which continues a long history of success for African-American students at Lamar University. In fact, well before the Civil Rights Bill, LU admitted African-American students. In 1956, 23 students entered LU. They were the first African-Americans. Six of them graduated two years later. Of course, it was Lamar Tech back then. 

Shelly Vitanza: The list of successful African-American alumni is very lengthy. I requested the list and it's pages and pages long. But let me highlight one today. One that jumped off the page I thought was so great: Levy Dumas. He was the first African-American to graduate from Lamar University, which was Lamar Tech at the time, in 1966 with a Civil Engineering Degree. And in his lifetime, he just turned 80 last year in 2019, Mr. Dumas helped invent the HOV lane in California and the rail system in Atlanta, Georgia. Wow, that's pretty exciting. Had to highlight him. We'll highlight an African-American every show through February.

President of SGA on the impact of student government

Shelly Vitanza: Let's follow that thread of successful students and talk with three I've got in studio today. I have with me Edward Doan, he's a Senior Chemical Engineering major and President of the Student Government Association. Welcome Edward.

Edward Doan: Thank you for having me.

Shelly Vitanza: I've got Katey McCall, she's a Senior Poli-Sci, Political Science major. Pretty exciting time to be a political science major, I can only imagine. Welcome Katey. Tyler Martin, Junior mechanical Engineering major. He is a Junior and Class Senator for the Student Government. You guys, I brought you all in because you are making a big difference on the LU campus. Edward, I guess well, any of you can jump in at any time, but Edward, let's start with you.

Edward Doan: Go ahead.

Shelly Vitanza: You've got a big job as the President of the Student Government Association. What's going on with student government right now, and really what kind of power does the Student Government Association have at Lamar University? Can you really do something Edward?

Edward Doan: Yes ma'am. The only way to sum it up in one sentence is to say that SGA, Student Government Association, works with students, try to figure out student problems, student issues, student concerns, and work with administration to draft different policies, action plans, programs to address those concerns. That sounds rather vague, but that's really the only way to say it succinctly.

Shelly Vitanza: Do students bring those issues to you, to student government, to you personally? I mean, how does that work?

Edward Doan: Any Avenue. Sometimes a student will just see as I'm walking to class, and they'll-

Shelly Vitanza: Hey Edward!

Edward Doan: Let me know something that's going on. Sometimes it's [crosstalk 00:03:15]

Shelly Vitanza: I'm sure you love that. Yeah.

Edward Doan: Yeah, it's great. Any way possible. As long as we hear it somehow through email, through our suggestion box, we'll take it to the next meeting and try to draft a plan around that.

Shelly Vitanza: Great. What have you been working on? Have you accomplished some things? Have you got some things in the works? What's happening?

Edward Doan: Yeah, so there's several types of projects. There's very short term projects and longterm projects. An example of a short term project would be short term, as in, we did what we could.

Shelly Vitanza: Right.

Edward Doan: For our safety walk, this was actually started a few years ago, but we still continue it, where LU students and administrators will walk around the college at night and identify different hazards, whether it's a choice of landscaping design or lighting.

Shelly Vitanza: Perfect.

Edward Doan: Addressing all of those, and this is something we do every semester.

Shelly Vitanza: That's important stuff.

Edward Doan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Something that's more long term that we've been able to complete is Swipe Out Hunger, where during finals every single year, students are able to donate the rest of their meal plan. The school would take that and get those to students facing food insecurity.

Shelly Vitanza: I love that plan. That is great. You've accomplished both of those things, are still working on the safety, which is an ongoing thing.

Edward Doan: Right, that will always be an ongoing thing.

Shelly Vitanza: Yeah. Yeah. What else do you think students are excited about or interested in? I mean, what do you hear the most about? Parking?

Edward Doan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Shelly Vitanza: What else? Moving on.

Edward Doan: Parking's really the biggest thing that you constantly hear about. It's really interesting to see what's going on, on the inside with the parking office.

Shelly Vitanza: Yes.

Edward Doan: You learn that the majority of parking is tied up, but within the Montagne Center. The numbers on paper look fine, but frankly, a lot of students don't want to walk from the Montagne Center to the rest of campus.

Shelly Vitanza: Got it.

Edward Doan: That's where that issue really comes from.

Shelly Vitanza: I got it. We got to walk, I understand. I went to Texas A&M University. I cannot tell you how thin I got, walking. It's just part of college folks, we got to walk.

Edward Doan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Tyler Martin on campus beautification

Shelly Vitanza: All right, Tyler, I'm going to bring you in right now. You're really part of SGA, but your focus is on beautification in spirit. Why so much spirit?

Tyler Martin: Right. I mean, in my opinion, a lot of the complaints, a lot of the issues that I always heard, even before SGA, was regarding school spirit or traditions, people feeling LU isn't quite the home they would want it to be. That was my main goal with SGA, was to see what I could do to help out with that.

Shelly Vitanza: Take ownership of that.

Tyler Martin: Right, exactly. That would be by instituting things, new traditions, and things that would last for generations, or having projects to make campus more beautiful. One example is one that I'm working on right now with the Director of Marketing for the University, Kate Downing. We're working to get large, 40 by 10 foot, banners put on the library, on the walls of the library, because right now, it is just a giant brick fortress.

Shelly Vitanza: Right.

Tyler Martin: The goal, being to make it a little less of an eyesore sometimes.

Shelly Vitanza: Yes.

Tyler Martin: It'd be more attractive. You walk by, like, "Oh that's my library. This is Lamar. This is my school."

Shelly Vitanza: Got it.

Tyler Martin: Trying to hit those kinds of feelings for students.

Shelly Vitanza: Perfect. Reception has been well with the students?

Tyler Martin: Yes, yes. Anytime anybody hears about the projects that we have going on, as long as they're made aware of it, even if it's not spirit related, students always love that. They hear what we have going with the Swipe Out Hunger, that's a really popular one.

Shelly Vitanza: Oh, that's great.

Tyler Martin: The banner project, that is too. As soon as students hear about what we're doing, they're usually really on board with all the projects we have going on.

Shelly Vitanza: All right. Give me something that's in the future, something you dream about that you really want to make happen.

Tyler Martin: With SGA? Or, in general?

Shelly Vitanza: Just in general, with spirit, with tradition, with SGA.

Tyler Martin: I mean, like I said, one of the things I really like to see is us to have long standing traditions. For instance, A&M has the ring dipping and all their things that they do with that, all these little different traditions and things that they built up over generations.

Shelly Vitanza: Right.

Tyler Martin: I think one of the issues is that we don't have very many of those, and they're hard to start. You can't just make a tradition start.

Shelly Vitanza: Right.

Tyler Martin: People have to buy in.

Shelly Vitanza: Exactly.

Tyler Martin: It takes a large group of students. Things like The Peckers are a good start for that. Some of the projects that we'll be instituting over the next few semesters.

Shelly Vitanza: For those who don't know who The Peckers are, why don't you tell us real quick?

Tyler Martin: Right. The Packers are an unaffiliated Lamar student group that's all about instituting school spirit at our event. They go out to every athletic event they can, they paint their chest with LU, Lamar, Cardinals, all that good stuff. Then, they go, they just get loud, excited, rowdy, and make the games a more fun place to be. Because without them, I remember my first couple of games that I went to as a freshman, they were good, but they weren't super exciting. There wasn't a lot of school spirit, but now with that, it's been helping a lot.

Shelly Vitanza: Perfect. Thanks Tyler. Fun stuff you're doing.

Tyler Martin: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Thank you.

Katey McCall, student member of Board of Regents

Shelly Vitanza: All right. Katey McCall, second student in the LU history to be elected to the Board of Regents as a student member. How's that going for you Katie? Congratulations.

Katey McCall: Thank you. I really love it. I feel my time at SGA helped me prepare to going into larger scale, since I've worked with administration previously. Just being able to do it in a larger scale has given me a lot of depth into our school system and our school. It's really taught me how to work with everyone and be able to give back to the students as much as possible.

Shelly Vitanza: How does that work with the students, and what are you giving back?

Katey McCall: For student regent, or in my role in SGA?

Shelly Vitanza: Both, give us one of each.

Katey McCall: Okay. For my role in SGA, my focus is generally towards accessibility. I've worked with the DRC several times. This was a medium sized project, but the first semester of when I was a senator, I brought an idea to the Director of Risk Management, Gary Rash.

Shelly Vitanza: Yes.

Katey McCall: I noticed that we didn't really have a solid evacuation plan for people who were not able to physically take the stairs by themselves in the event of an electrical emergency, or any emergency that shuts down the elevators.

Shelly Vitanza: Yeah, that's a big deal.

Katey McCall: There was a plan worked on, the Accessibility Committee helped write it up. I unfortunately had class during every meeting, but I loved getting the emails to keep up and put my input. Now it is being tested out in the library this semester.

Shelly Vitanza: That's great.

Katey McCall: Working towards keeping Lamar safe, then working on accessibility.

Shelly Vitanza: Making a big difference.

Katey McCall: Yes.

Shelly Vitanza: You love the Board of Regents meetings, you get to be on the inside.

Katey McCall: Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am.

Shelly Vitanza: Well, I know you get to have a representative, which we haven't had in a long time.

Katey McCall: I'm the second student and the first girl who's gotten to do it from Lamar. It's something very special. A lot of the Regents know what school I'm from, because there's only been two of us.

Shelly Vitanza: Right.

Katey McCall: But, I've been able to weigh in with a lot of students' opinions and give thoughts to students I hear often. Parking, for example, is something I fairly regularly bring up.

Shelly Vitanza: You carry the torch to the Board of Regents. I love it. Perfect. Okay, we've got to wrap up real quick, because I've got one more guest, but tell us Edward, maybe an LU student who's listening out there, how do they get involved with you guys? How accessible are you? Is there an email? Is there a phone number? How can they?

Edward Doan: Easiest way to get involved is to just show up and represent yourself at our joint sessions. Within our bylaws, it's the second week of every month. This semester it'll be the second Monday at 5:30 in Neches, 01/20, Setzer Center.

Shelly Vitanza: Perfect. Thanks for being here guys, really appreciate it.

LU Theatre performs Greek tragedy Bakkhai

Shelly Vitanza: Big things happening at LU, many student driven, including our stage projections. I've got Joel Grothe here to tell us about that. The next production is Bakkhai, it's a Greek tragedy. Joel, you are what for this show?

Joel Grothe: I'm the director.

Shelly Vitanza: You're the director?

Joel Grothe: Correct.

Shelly Vitanza: All right, Greek tragedy?

Joel Grothe: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Shelly Vitanza: Bring your Kleenex?

Joel Grothe: Yeah, bring your Kleenex, and be prepared to walk out of the theater and shake it off afterwards.

Shelly Vitanza: Ah, got it, got it. Give us a little synopsis of this show.

Joel Grothe: Bakkhai, originally it was written by Euripides. It's about 2,500 years old, so it's not a new play. This is a fairly new version adaptation of it, but it's the story of Dionysus, who most of us are maybe vaguely familiar with Dionysus or Bacchus, the God of wine and fertility, and it's Euripides last play. I would say it is his most incendiary or controversial. Basically, it's Dionysus going back to Thebes. He thinks he's been disrespected by some of the people there, and he takes his revenge on them in a very interesting, controversial way.

Shelly Vitanza: Doesn't sound like we should bring our children to this.

Joel Grothe: No, this is mature content.

Shelly Vitanza: Is this more of an adult? Okay. Very good. Big production? Small?

Joel Grothe: Fairly big. It is in our studio theater, but it's unlike anything I've done in my 10 years here. The cast is about 15, I've had a big cast before. I've had larger casts than that, but it's a set in a design concept, I guess I would say, that encompasses the whole space. It's really like you're stepping into an experience, rather than a stepping into a theater, getting a seat, and watching a play.

Shelly Vitanza: Why this production?

Joel Grothe: Oh, I don't know. It's always a challenge to pick a season. I'm usually the last voice when it comes to picking our season. This was the last play. We picked four plays for this year. This is not the last play we're doing, but it's the last one I picked. It was the most challenging.

Shelly Vitanza: Got it. Did you pick it for that reason? Challenging, something different for the students?

Joel Grothe: It's challenging. We haven't done a Greek tragedy in 10 years. I did one about 10 years ago when I got here. I think it's really important that the students have the chance to do that kind of work, work with heightened language, and it's work that is not really community theater fare. Beaumont community theater does some great stuff, but they're not going to take this on.

Shelly Vitanza: Exactly.

Joel Grothe: We have the opportunity and the leeway to do that. It's important work for the students and for the area, I think.

Shelly Vitanza: Are the students loving it? I mean, it's something really different, I'm assuming, yeah.

Joel Grothe: It is different, I think they're challenged, and they're trying to figure out what's going on. There's a lot of learning happening, which, that is a good thing.

Shelly Vitanza: That's why we're there.

Joel Grothe: Yeah.

Shelly Vitanza: Okay. When can we see this? The public's invited? What's the cost?

Joel Grothe: That's correct. It's next weekend. It's February 13th through the 16th, Thursday.

Shelly Vitanza: Valentine's weekend.

Joel Grothe: Yeah, right, great Valentine's weekend, Greek tragedy.

Shelly Vitanza: Well, wine and fertility.

Joel Grothe: Exactly.

Shelly Vitanza: You could just make it... It's a little stretch.

Joel Grothe: It's short.

Shelly Vitanza: Ah, okay.

Joel Grothe: It's only about 65 minutes.

Shelly Vitanza: Ah, okay.

Joel Grothe: But, it's that weekend at 7:30, Thursday through Saturday. Tickets are for general admission, it's $15. For staff, Lamar, faculty and seniors, it's $10. For students, it is $7. It's $15, $10 and $7. You can get tickets at lamar.edu/lutdtix.

Shelly Vitanza: L-U-T-D, tix, T-I-X.

Joel Grothe: T-I-X.

Shelly Vitanza: Okay.

Joel Grothe: You can go to the theater and dance website, also, lamar.edu/theater. The phone number for the box office is (409)880-2250, and you can also buy them in person too.

Shelly Vitanza: Very good. Thank you so much. We look forward to seeing that it is Bakkhai, Greek tragedy at Lamar. It is February 13th through the 16th.

Joel Grothe: 16th.

Shelly Vitanza: Perfect. All right. Did you know that the Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum offers blacksmithing classes? Call the museum at (409)880-1750, or visit the museum. It's open Tuesday through Saturday at Lamar University. Hey, thanks for listening to the LU Moment. I'm Shelly Vitanza, Director of Public Affairs at Lamar University, the pride of Southeast Texas.