The Pine Log

              CMYK
Thursday, September 22, 2011
TODAY
H 94 L The
FRIDAY
H 90 L 91 L 63
Volume 91
Issue 4
Next Publication:
Monday, September 26, 2011
Visit us online at
www.thepinelog.com
The Independent Voice of Stephen F. Austin State University
Page 4
Lady Jack
to be in the
Olympics
Page 10 PINE LOG
SFA parents visit
campus to see
their kids and
their money
63
62
SATURDAY
H
The SFA WAY-The Principle of Unity
Lumberjacks are loyal to their friends, family, university, state and country • Lumberjacks stand together against any adversary • They recognize that though we are
very different from one another, we are united by the Lumberjack Spirit. Lumberjacks seek to understand the people and world around them • When one lumberjack
fails, all fail • When one lumberjack succeeds, all succeed.
RHA set to celebrate annual Parents Day with events and SFA football
By Erika A. Nichols
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
On Saturday, Sept. 24, hundreds of friends
and family members of students will be at-tending
Parents Day at SFA.
“This entire day is for the parents to get
to know what campus life is like and what
their students are doing on a daily basis,”
according to Stephanie Gilbreath, Parents
Day coordinator. Gilbreath, who is associ-ated
with Residence Hall Association at
SFA, spent her entire summer preparing for
the event.
“I don’t want it to be just an RHA event, I
want it to be a Nacogdoches, or University,
event as well,” Gilbreath said.
Although the event is planned by RHA,
Residence Life staff members, too, get ex-cited
about this event.
“We’re always excited about Parents Day,”
said Gennie Lynn, Residence Life Program
coordinator.
This year’s Parents Day theme is, “Oh, the
Sites You Will See at SFA.”
The day will begin with coffee with the
administration followed by a welcome cer-emony
in the Grand Ballroom at the Baker
Pattillo Student Center.
From 1 to 4 p.m., the Site Adventures
will take place. This activity is something
parents and students can participate in
together. During this activity, students and
parents have free time. They have the op-tion
of doing as they please, but RHA has
several options and activities available for
free time.
The activities include bingo downtown
and pool time at the Recreation Center, and
a movie will be shownin the Baker Pattillo
Student Center.
According to Gilbreath, the site adven-tures
are probably the most interesting
event for both students and parents.
“This year the goal is for the event to be
more community based. We are trying to
reach out to the community to get them
involved,” she said.
RHA members have been working with
the Nacogdoches Visitors Bureau to plan a
“downtown bingo” on Main Street.
“We’re going to have buses taking par-ents
and students from the campus and
taking them to downtown, where they can
shop, play bingo, and win prizes,” Gilbreath
said.
The events that are planned for down-town
on Parents Day will help increase
revenue and allow parents to see what is in
Nacogdoches besides the University.
RHA hopes for a bigger turnout this year
at the event.
“We want them to have a really good ex-perience
while they are here visiting,” said
Gilbreath.
At 4 p.m. dinner will be served at East
College Cafeteria.
“(The staff of) ECC gets excited about
Parents Day every year, and they like to go
all out for the parents,” Gilbreath said.
Following dinner will be a spirit rally to
get students enthused about the football
game after the rally against Texas State.
A full schedule of events is located on
Page 3
enichols@thepinelog.com
Former SGA president found dead
near Port Aransas, homicide possible
The body of an Austin man, who was a
former SGA president and 1991 Mr. SFA, was
found near Port Aransas last week after his
wife reported him missing.
The Austin American-Statesman report-ed
Saturday that the death of Christopher
Robert Tiensch, 43, was being investigated
as a homicide.
Tiensch, who lived in the Austin area
of West Lake Hills with his wife, Danè,
and two small children, apparently disap-peared
from a Holiday Inn Express hotel
room in Port Aransas where he had gone
alone on a fishing trip.
Port Aransas Police chief Scott Burroughs
issued a statement Friday saying, “It was
determined that Mr. Tiensch had been shot
and it does not appear that the gunshot was
self-inflicted.”
Tiensch was reported missing by his wife
on Sept. 11. Police said they found his wallet
and personal items untouched in his room
and his Range Rover in the parking lot.
His body was found Thursday morning
along the Gulf shore of San Jose Island, sev-eral
miles north of where Tiensch was stay-ing,
according to officials. Media reports
said the island is only accessible by boat or
private plane.
Tiensch graduated from SFA in 1991 with
a Bachelor of Business Administration de-gree.
During his tenure at the University
he served as president of the Student
Government Association and was an ac-tive
member of Alpha Tau Omega frater-nity.
He also was an Orientation leader and
the recipient of a SFA Alumni Association
scholarship. He was a Life Member of the
association.
According to a New Zealand online
newspaper, Tiensch had been the chief ex-ecutive
of NZAX-listed Christchurch (New
Zealand) telecommunications company
Plus SMS until he was forced out in the wake
of controversy in 2008. The website nzher-ald.
co.nz reported that the SFA grad joined
Plus SMS in 2006, “just months before the
company declared it had made unrealistic
statements and a Securities Commission
investigation was launched.”
Speculation about a motive for the mur-der
has centered around a lawsuit Tiensch
filed in Austin accusing Plus SMS, of fraud
and of firing him without cause. A counter-suit
by SMS accused Tiensch of fraud and of
blackmailing board members, according to
New Zealand newspaper report.
Tiensch argued in court that the direc-tors
had persuaded him to mislead the pub-lic
to inflate stock prices, and he was forced
out when he refused.
A court last month awarded Tiensch a
$430,000 settlement, but media reports said
the money remained in the custody of the
court, with a hearing set for Thursday over
releasing the funds.
Kent Hutchison, Nacogdoches business-man
, credits Tiensch with getting him in-volved
in student government at SFA.
“As SGA president, he provided me an op-portunity
to get involved and later encour-aged
me to follow him as student body pres-ident,”
Hutchison said. “Danè, who later
became his wife, was my vice president,
and the three of us ended up working at the
state capitol following graduation.”
Dr. Tim Clipson, professor of general
business, said he was advisor for Alpha
Tau Omega and he worked with Tiensch,
visiting him a few times in Austin after he
graduated.
“As time sometimes does, I had lost track
of him but had heard occasionally
from others that he was enjoying the out-doors
with his adventurous spirit by
climbing many if not most of the world’s
highest mountains,” Clipson said. “I also
understand he was deeply in love with his
wife and his children. This does
PRESIDENT CONTINUED ON PAGE 7
By Jennifer Trammell
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Patricia Foster, an assis-tant
professor in the psy-chology
department, has
received the Distinguished
Teaching Award from
the College Reading and
Learning Association.
This group consists of
student-oriented profes-sionals
active in reading
and learning. Every year
they choose an exempla-ry
teacher who provides
a model of enthusiastic,
knowledgeable and com-passionate
teaching to en-courage
their professional
development. This year
they have chosen Foster.
She said she “didn’t start
school until her 40s,” when
she received her first de-gree,
an associates in so-cial
sciences at Cerro Coso
Community College in Kern
Valley, Calif., where she was
raised. She then went on
to earn her bachelor’s de-gree
in psychology at the
University of Houston in
2002.
It wasn’t until she gradu-ated
that she discovered
SFA for the first time and
decided to work on her
master’s degree, which she
earned in 2004.
Foster recalled why she
choose SFA for her master’s
work.
“When I met the profes-sors
and saw how beautiful
the campus and the sur-roundings
were, and I dis-covered
the people were so
great, I fell in love.”
After her experience as a
student it became apparent
that Foster did not want to
leave SFA, because in 2008
she was back, this time as
a visiting instructor in the
psychology department.
Just two years later sthe po-sition
became permanent.
Foster said she loves her
job because, “I feel like the
luckiest teacher, I get all the
best students here, I love
that I get 500 new students
to teach every six months.”
Her teaching philosophy
is to have a student ori-ented
classroom, where
the course is more focused
on students learning main
concepts than a content-oriented
classroom, where
the teacher is focused on
the amount of content cov-ered.
She admits her two fa-vorite
classes are Effective
Learning (teaches students
study skills, life lessons,
and how to stay motivated),
and Positive Psychology
(teaches students motiva-tion
techniques and how
to cope with different situ-ations
they may be faced
with).
Yet teaching isn’t the only
thing Foster does at SFA.
She is also the associate di-rector
at the SFA Teaching
Excellence Center, an orga-nization
whose goal is to
help the faculty become
better teachers, working on
improving resources, hav-ing
“teaching circles” in
which teachers discuss the
problems they have with
teaching, and so forth.
On top of her job at the
SFA Teaching Excellence
Center and her teaching ca-reer,
Foster is also working
on earning her doctorate at
the University of Texas at
Austin.
When asked how she bal-ances
all three demands
on her time, she said:
“Honestly, it’s hard. Writing
a dissertation is so intense.”
jtrammell@thepinelog.com
Professor wins
teaching award
Activist spray paints message in art center
JENNIFER ROGERS/THE PINE LOG
Professor Ron King of the Art Department cleans grafitti off of the sidewalk after a
student activist spray painted, “Feels so good not to be bought” on the floor in the
art center.
SFA students can serve others
during Alternative Spring Break
By Alyssa Tenorio
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The Office of Student
Affairs, Leadership and
Service, is taking applica-tions
for Alternative Spring
Break, a trip geared to serv-ing
other communities
across the United States.
The trip is scheduled
for mid-March, and appli-cations
are due by Friday,
Oct. 7.
Jamie Bouldin, assistant
director for leadership and
service, explained that stu-dents
are taken off campus
to participate in a variety of
community projects, which
they help plan, in a chosen
city. Sixteen students and
four faculty members will
participate this year.
Students of all classifica-tions
and majors are eli-gible
to apply.
“Alternative Spring
Break is open to all stu-dents,
especially those who
have a genuine interest in
service projects and those
who want to do volunteer
work,” Bouldin said.
Students will not only
fill out an application on-line,
but also “interview
with our two team leaders
and plan a service project
before we go on the trip,”
Bouldin continued.
Applicants who are ac-cepted
will attend meetings
during the fall in prepara-tion
for the trip, including
preparing for the type of
environment they will be
serving.
“Through Alternative
Spring Break, we want the
students to learn some-thing
about themselves and
to be challenged,” Bouldin
said. “We want to put them
in situations they haven’t
been in before.”
Past Alternative Spring
Break trips have been to
New Orleans and Memphis,
but this year’s location is
being kept secret until after
the participants are cho-sen.
“We want students to
come said. “There’s a lot
of downtime to experi-ence
the local culture, but
there’s hard work, too.”
Alternative Spring Break
will host two interest meet-ings
on Wednesday, Sept.28,
in the BPSC 3rd floor
Commons and Tuesday,
Oct. 4, in Lumberjack
Village for students look-ing
for more information
on the trip. Both meetings
will be held at 6 p.m.
Applications for
Alternative Spring Break
can be found online at
http://bit.ly/sfa-asb.
aternorio@thepinelog.com
Patricia Foster
Assistant professor
of psychology