4/25/2016 Issue

@HSUORACLE www.hsuoracle.com Henderson State University — Monday, April 25, 2016 Volume 110, Issue 25

ALL FOULED UP Reddie Baseball falls short in three game series P. 8

THE ORACLE

3 AVENUE Q AT HSU 4-5 READY FOR GRADUATION 6 SPORTS 8 JOB AVAILABILITY HSU position for assistant provost now open

THE ORACLE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF – Moe Skinner FACULTY ADVISER – Mike Taylor COPY EDITOR – Madison MacNew NEWS EDITOR – Carmin Wills SPORTS EDITOR – Dom Cella VIEWS EDITOR – Dax Guilliams PHOTO EDITOR – Joshua Bradley PAGE DESIGNER – Melanie Cole AD DESIGNER – Chris Sharp GRAPHIC DESIGNER – Jordan Jones ONLINE EDITOR – Ashley Smith

An inside look at the theatre production from prep to performance (Documentary coming soon online)

Senior art majors Jordan Jones and Rafael Quiroz finish their senior exhibitions

HSU Baseball falls short to Oklahoma Baptist

BUSINESS MANAGER – Coley Henson

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Have an opinion on an issue or response to what we said? Just want to rant about something for a while? Write us at ORACLE@HSU.EDU. We want to hear what you think. Hell, if it doesn’t suck, we’ll publish it in next week’s issue. Try to keep it between 400 and 600 words. Just like your Tumblr, we ignore anonymous submissions.

COVER Hayden Lessenberry fouls one off last Saturday.

PHOTO BY DOM CELLA

ONLINE STORIES Make sure to check out our other featured stories online at www.hsuoracle.com.

TEXTBOOK PROPOSAL PRINCE TRIBUTE 125TH ANNIVERSARY GALA FACULTY AT CHORAL CAMP CAREER FAIR REVIEW WOODWINDS CONCERT

FELLOW BLOGGERS If anyone is interested in having their personal blog published, feel free to email us at ORACLE@HSU.EDU. If we don’t find it absolutely obnoxious, we will be happy to let you have a chance to share your words.

APRIL 25, 2016

FEATURES

VIEWS

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THE THAW ON HIRING ALREADY

New position opens for assistant provost

STORY BY SERENE GARCIA — GRAPHIC BY JORDAN JONES Stephen Adkison, provost and vice president for academic affairs, released an email to remind faculty of the newly opened position for an associate provost.

This position is intended to help stabilize enrollment and improve recruiting and retention. Retention this year has actually gone up, however, “The goal is 75 percent,” Adkison said.

“Enrollment has seen a slight decline.”

The enrollment has been effected for several reasons, one being the number of transfer students. There have been less transfer students in the past than the last few years. This is caused by low enrollment in community colleges.

“We are looking at a decrease in community college enrollment for the next several years,” Adkison said.

The lack of community college students transferring will cause an enrollment disruption.

Another issue that Adkison addresses is the old system of admissions that is known as POISE. This system is older, “It limits what we can do,” Adkison said.

Because of these aging systems Adkison has asked Jim Black to come in as a consultant to help refine and develop strategies.

Approximately four years ago, another consultant company called Credo was brought in. However, the advice was not followed. Adkison believes that Black will give advice that will allow the enrollment to grow and to stabilize.

Along with working on the POISE system, Black will be interviewing faculty from all departments.

The associate provost positon is intended to help “move our enrollment services and admissions into the 21st century,” Adkison, said.

The associate provost of enrollment and admissions will be payed a salary of approximately $70,000 to $90,000 depending on experience and the individual.

The responsibilities will range from scholarship programs, undergraduate enrollment goals, to overseeing and participating in the evaluation of admission

applications.

This position is first being offered to someone with a faculty background. To ensure that the person chosen will be the right fit for the job.

Some may ask how is Adkison is making all these changes with a hiring freeze going on? Well, the hiring freeze is only for non-essential functions and non-essential spending, there are areas in which spending is essential because, “these programs are what draw students to Henderson,” Adkison, said. Also the new position will not start until July 1 of this year, which is when the new fiscal year begins.

The responsibilities that the incoming associate provost will take on are obviously not left unattended in the meantime of the position being filled. These responsibilities have fallen to Vikita Hardwrick, director of university relations and admissions, for the last 23 years.

“Vikita has always worked very well with our academic faculty, but never in the way that we need to, as we start marketing our programs and getting faculty engaged in recruiting,” Adkison said.

Hardwrick’s responsibilities, amongst other new duties, will be taken over by the new associate provost and Hardwrick will be transferred. Where she will be transferred has still not been released.

“Vikita remains a highly valued staff member here at Henderson and I hope we can find another role for her,” Adkison, said.

This change mirrors the phenomenon that we face in society today. A gradual release of tradition and a smooth acceptance of what is apparently better or more widely accepted.

This is causing a shift in a person’s life and a change after doing the same thing for 20 years. Most life-altering events do not occur sporadically but for the sake of the on-looker, it is a gradual decent into accepting something that, at one point, seemed foreign to becoming the new norm.

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NEWS

VIEWS

A WALK DOWN AVENUE Q From opening the script to opening night STORY BY EMILY R. BELL — PHOTOS BY JARED KELSEY Avenue Q, written by Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez, hit the stage at Arkansas Hall last week. The spoof, “Sesame Street” style musical involves a satirical, yet rather honest, outlook on life after college.

Dr. Claudia Beach, director of theatre as well as director of the school’s production of Avenue Q, was eager to take on the performance.

“We tend to do musicals every other year, just enough for each student to get that experience in their four years here,” Beach said.

Avenue Q has two official scripts, the original includes its crudest points, whereas the other offers a slightly more cleaned up take.

“I read both versions of the script, and really it’s not that much more cleaned up,” Beach assured. “It takes the most offensive language out of the play, but the edginess and basic premise is certainly still there.”

“I wasn’t a fan of it until last year,” Koty Mansfield, junior theatre major and lead role of Princeton, said of Avenue Q. “My friend and I heard a rumor that we would be doing the show, so he got me to listen to the soundtrack.”

Savannah Reynolds, sophomore theatre major, was excited to be cast as the other lead role, Kate Monster.

“She’s my favorite character in the show,” Reynolds said. “I had listened to the songs before our production, and thought they were really funny and catchy.”

“I think this musical has a nice, important message for college students,” Beach said. “It’s based around what happens when you graduate from college, and how you adapt to life after that.”

Avenue Q Puppetry Workshops: In early March, the theatre department had their last of four puppetry workshops in preparation for their upcoming production of Avenue Q. Beach rented the cast of puppets from the Dallas Puppet Theater, a non-profit organization. Pix Smith, director at Dallas Puppet Theater, delivered the hand crafted puppets and offered his expertise to the student cast.

For the first three workshops, students had only used practice puppets to begin their lessons. Smith turned the official stage-ready puppets over to the students for their final workshop that night.

Smith trained the actors by working directly with the students through the puppets and the tools that operate them. He demonstrated how to conduct proper handling of the puppets as well as coordinated speech and mouth movements.

Smith reminded the students that their overall goal was to create easy to read, yet vibrant expressions

through their puppets, and to take the focus off of themselves.

Each puppet character had multiples of itself in different outfits for specific scenes of the production, which Beach noted would aid in between-scene preparations.

“They won’t have to dress and redress their puppets in a rush before their next scene,” Beach said. She also pointed out that changing the puppets before each scene could result in accidental tears due to the speedy over handling.

Anna Brantley, junior theatre major, was cast as the “girl bad ideas bear” with her counterpart “boy bad ideas bear,” played by Anthony McBride, senior theatre major.

“We come in and convince people to do terrible things,” McBride said.

“One of my lines is literally, ‘slip her the tongue!’”

Brantley said.

The entire class lined up to rehearse Avenue Q’s opening song with their stage-ready puppets.

In between puppetry practices, Smith reminded the students to rest their arms so as not to develop muscle cramps.

As all the students continued to work their newly gained skills, Smith commented on their improvement from the first workshop.

“This is normally a crash and burn situation and nobody crashed and burned,” Smith said, encouraging the students to applaud their jobs well done.

The students showed marked improvement with only a few habits left to tweak. Smith assured them all that they would easily be puppeteer professionals by opening night if not sooner.

Beach watched her students practice with their puppets for hours, smiling wide the whole time. The students appeared just as jubilant and handled their puppets as though they were true extensions of themselves.

“We’ve been doing these workshops for two days now, and the actors have accumulated 14 hours of training from Pix,” Beach said. “It’s starting to come together.”

The Set of Avenue Q: As Avenue Q’s opening night neared, professor Douglas Gilpin, set designer and lighting and technical director, worked fervently with his students to finish the set.

“The students have been busting their butts,” Gilpin said. “I’m the one who’s behind. My creativity just hasn’t been as strong on this one as it has been in the

past.”

Gilpin explained that usually the department does four productions per school year, but this year they had done six.

“Not only have we been lacking the time we need, but the energy as well,” he said.

Over ten students scrambled throughout the set, even from above where two set up lighting and cables.

Drills, nail guns, even power saws whirred and cracked in unison over the students’ bustling.

One student smeared her bare fingers into fresh caulk to create an aged brick effect on one wall of the “apartments.” Another commanded specific lighting features and placement from the stage to a student in the tech booth above.

Without a stutter or slip, Gilpin calmly divvied out an assortment of tasks from “I want a very thin wash of that primary red” to “tighten that light up more to the center.”

His directions seemed entirely comprised of nonsensical chaos, but each student understood Gilpin’s language of backstage production fluently.

However, sometimes that chaos did slightly thwart Gilpin’s process, but he seemed comfortable enough to continue on with little concern. As he walked out onto the stage he looked around, “Yes? Someone called for me? No, wait, that was Damien, I just took care of that.” He went about his business as usual.

Gilpin pushed through several hours each day to finish the last production of the school year.

“Sometimes you get to the end and you’re pulling out every trick you got left in your pocket,” Gilpin said. “That’s been the most struggle, finding the ideas.

They’re there, but the pencil is tired.”

Rehearsals and Dress Rehearsal: On March 23’s rehearsal, only the bones of the set were complete. There were no doors yet, no paint, just mismatched plywood converted from old stage sets, and what marked the first phase of the “apartments.”

While waiting for Bill Higgins, chair to the department of music, to set up his lesson for the night, Mansfield practiced with his puppet, “Princeton.” The first hour of rehearsals were dedicated to the singing cast only to practice each musical number of Avenue Q. Higgins’s rehearsals were intense, thorough, and fast-paced. He ran through the chord progressions to every line of “There Is Life Outside Your Apartment.”

Higgins analyzed each singer’s vocals, scrutinizing every tone and key change until he achieved the perfect pitch through the students’ efforts.

APRIL 25, 2016

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SPORTS

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CHARACTER REHEARSING — Members of the cast become aquainted with their puppet character.

“We can’t be etch-a-sketches and forget everything we learn from one rehearsal to the next. We have to build from what we learn each time,” Higgins said, halting the rehearsal. “We have to retain.”

Although critical, Higgins made sure to explain each chord and key change to help the students understand how to emulate them more precisely.

While the actors practiced, they would interact with each other by running through bits of their choreography.

Higgins halted the practice only once more. “We’re going to fix this once, and then it’s going to stay fixed,” he said, determined to make a clean run of at least one song.

Finally, the music portion of the rehearsal ended.

Beach then announced, “Puppets in place!” Students scurried off to collect their character’s puppet.

Since the series of workshops, the cast demonstrated a strong confidence when handling their puppets, and proved more flawless, effortless movements while rehearsing. The students seemed to grasp how to channel their emotions and reactions through their puppets.

Two weeks later, the music rehearsal flowed smoothly with few hitches, and the students were able to go through each song in the show without being stopped.

Higgins seemed pleased, often smiling and commending the students.

The cast soon followed suit by running through the entire show from beginning to end. Although not perfect, there was marked improvement in each student’s abilities to act with their puppets.

There were certainly fewer mistakes in line memorization, although even leads Mansfield and Reynolds found themselves moving through the first act a little too quickly.

“Oh my gosh, we skipped a scene,” Mansfield realized during a scene involving Princeton and Kate. “I am so sorry, let’s start over,” he apologized to Beach as he and Reynolds reset.

By dress rehearsal the next week, the cast had worked tirelessly to pull off a fully polished production.

Higgins had the live band set up to the left of the set, just out of sight of the audience. Only he, as the composer, was visible to most.

The stage was mostly complete, only a few tweaks left for Gilpin and his crew to finish by the time the show opened the next night.

Opening Night: Avenue Q opened on April 14. A half hour before the show began, students, alumni, and family of the cast lined up as far back as the street entrance of Arkansas Hall for their tickets. Although the room acquired a cacophony of excited chatter, the faint hum of Higgins’s live band warming up backstage sifted through.

President Glendell Jones arrived with his wife, having reserved front row seats for the show. “I’m eager to see what they’ve created,” he said.

With the stage fully set, screens showed the Avenue Q cartoon introduction, and the band marked the opening song. Avenue Q had officially begun.

The audience delighted in the music, some even quietly singing along to the songs. There were constant bouts of laughter, and applause at the end of every number.

Beach and the cast even worked in a little audience interaction.

During “The Money Song,” wherein the characters sing about how donating money to a good cause in turn makes you feel wonderful, the cast wove into the audience with small buckets for donations to the theatre department. Both the president and Moe Skinner, the editor in chief at The Oracle, were quick to share from their wallets.

The show received an immediate standing ovation and a roar of whistles and shouts.

The president met with each cast member during the

after-party, and commended the students for their hard work and impressive performances. Some even jokingly remained in character for their more avid fans.

“We did it, the night is over,” Beach said as she smiled.

Even though during “Everyone’s a Little Racist,” when one cast member launched a shoe through the air while performing a kick line, Beach loved how the cast recovered.

“It just added to the comedy, and it was perfect that Princeton (Mansfield) was the one to pick up the shoe and return it,” Beach laughed.

The semester was long and tiring for the theatre department, but they succeeded in every way they hoped.

“Life is hard,” Beach said. “You learn to appreciate the good times, and go with the flow.”

Certainly as is the life of dedicated theatre people.

HANGING OUT — The main characters hang tight back stage.

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NEWS

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ARTISTS ON

THE VERGE

Jordan Jones and Rafael Quiroz complete their senior exhibitions STORY BY GABBY CALVIN Last Tuesday, the receptions for “Judge by the Cover,” the senior exhibition of Jordan Jones, graphic art and design major, and “Rhapsody,” the senior exhibition of Rafael Quiroz, digital art and design major, were held on the second floor of Huie Library.

A senior exhibition is a presentation of a student’s graduation portfolio. While it is there to exhibit a student’s work, it also allows them to soak in all of their effort and watch others enjoy their work.

“My show is a collection of album and book covers that I designed to showcase my capabilities. I chose to do these kinds of covers because it allowed me to bring three of my favorite things together: music storytelling, and art,” Jones said. “With this set of work I wanted to focus on creating pieces that differentiate themselves from the standard graphic design show.”

“Rhapsody combines several visual concepts and media into one body of work.

My passion for music is fused with my experience utilizing photography, watercolor, and typography to create interesting art work,” Quiroz said. “This show is my response as a musician and as a designer to represent emotion and passion for music in a different manner.”

As soon as the clock struck 2 p.m. last Tuesday, students and faculty alike came flooding in to review Jones and Quiroz’s work.

“Jordan and Rafael are both very talented and creative artists,” Selena Smith, fine arts office manager, said. “I’ve enjoyed watching them grow as artists and know they will go on to do great things.”

“Their exhibition is one of the strongest this year. It’s been such a pleasure teaching both of these guys,” David Stoddard, professor of art, said. “Jordan has been a strong artist and designer since he began, but his style has definitely been refined over the last two years.”

“They are some of our very best students meaning they take instruction well,” Aaron Calvert, associate professor of art, said. “They’re the kind of seniors that we’re not worried about when they leave because we know they’ll be fine.”

It is clear that Jones and Quiroz have emerged as quite accomplished artists upon graduating from Henderson. Students and faculty spoke very highly of them and both will most likely be missed.

When asked about his time at Henderson, Quiroz explained, “HSU kind of grows on you as time goes on, you fall in love with your surroundings and the people. I’m thankful to have been mentored by some of the finest art and music faculty.”

Jones followed along with a similar response, “I have been extremely satisfied with my time at Henderson. Even though I didn’t go out a ton I managed to make great friends and I have learned a lot from my fellow art students and of course the great teachers here.”

Although their exhibition is now closed, you can view their work on their online portfolios.

Jones - https://www.behance.net/JoJo94 Quiroz – https://www.behance.net/rafaelquiroz

APRIL 25, 2016

NEWS

FEATURES

SPORTS

RAPID FIRE OPINIONS

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OPINION BY DAX GUILLIAMS — PARODY IMAGE BY JORDAN JONES BASED ON AN IMAGE © This is my last article of the semester so instead of doing one opinion piece, I’m going to do several short ones altogether. Now I have to hurry because there’s no time.

Scarlett Johansson is still for some reason going to play the role of Matoko Kusinagi in the “Ghost in the Shell” movie. No, I don’t want that.

She’s a good actress, but she’s not Matoko. They should have gotten Rinko Kikuchi, the actress from “Pacific Rim,” to portray her. Being in a movie as amazing as “Pacific Rim” qualifies you to play whoever you want in any movie.

Plus, she fits the role better than Johansson does.

“Pokken,” the fighting game involving “Pokemon” was released and it’s pretty good. However, it doesn’t have Snorlax so it isn’t as good as it could be.

If Nintendo gives us Snorlax, I’ll give them a better review.

People are boycotting Target for having gender neutral bathrooms because that, for whatever reason, is worth protesting.

No, don’t protest Congress for continuing to cut Social Security benefits while also voting to give themselves raises. Don’t protest because several states have committed voting rights violations and nothing has been done about it.

After all, men entering the same bathrooms as women is the real problem, not incompetent leadership.

I continued playing through “Dark Souls 3” and it got more difficult. What did we do to FromSoftware to make them hate us so much?

Still, while the game got more difficult as I went on, it also got better in terms of environments and the NPCs started giving me fun things to do.

It took me long enough, but I finally saw “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.”

Honestly, it wasn’t that great. I like Ben Affleck as Batman and Gal Gadot’s portrayal of Wonder Woman was great, but nothing else really stood out to me.

Doomsday shouldn’t have been shown off before the movie, Jessie Eisenberg’s portrayal of Lex Luthor wasn’t good or bad and Aquaman was in the movie for about two seconds despite him getting such a build up before the release.

The whole movie didn’t really do anything except make me excited for the Wonder Woman movie.

Valiant Comics are amazing. Valiant has a great lineup of heroes and villains and their comic book universe is easy to follow and get into. The HUIE Library doesn’t have anything by Valiant yet, but I’ll work on getting some of their graphic novels in there.

In the meantime, buy and read them on your own time.

How am I doing on time for the rest of these opinions? Trick question, I already told you that there is no time.

The week before spring break, several students and I visited New York City. It was very nice, the pizza was delicious and I still hate Times Square.

If you’re ever sitting around wondering if you should go to New York, I’d recommend doing so.

Many people are divided when it comes to buying Netflix or Hulu. Both of them are great. Both of them have the entire series of “The X-Files.”

If you have the money, get a subscription to both. With Netflix, you’ll have a lot of movie to watch along with “Daredevil.”

With Hulu, you can watch “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable.”

Speaking of which, the “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure” anime is still amazing in every sense of the word. I don’t care how you watch it, just that you do.

There are other good animes to watch too. Animes like “My Hero Academia.”

That’s all. Those are the only ones I’m into at the moment.

Be sure to continue supporting Bernie Sanders. Feel the Bern and all of that good stuff.

The trailers to “Captain America: Civil War” are making the movie look better and better. I’m sure it will be a great film with many great characters, even though the main two that matter are Hawkeye and Ant-Man. You thought it would be Captain America and Iron Man, but no, Hawkeye and Ant-Man. A new “Green Lantern” movie is in the works, but they are only using the characters Hal Jordan, John Stewart and Kyle Rayner.

They are not including Guy Gardner who is the best character to ever hold the title of Green Lantern. Why do you have to break my heart, Warner Bros?

Despite all criticism, YouTube continues to tear itself apart because their executives love destruction. Their fair use policy is still garbage, YouTube is favoring the users with large amounts of subscribers while leaving the smaller channels to die and even the most popular people on YouTube are calling them out.

Bad news for those that use YouTube, good news for people who watch live streaming on websites like Twitch and Hitbox instead.

That’s all of the opinions I have time and room on this page for. Thank you all for reading these articles of mine and look forward to my rants next semester.

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MAYALL MAYHEM HSU drops series to Oklahoma Baptist 2-1 STORY BY DOM CELLA — PHOTOS BY DOM CELLA After winning eight straight games with the help of freshman pitcher Kris Priddy, who is now 4-0, Henderson baseball headed into battle against strong opponent, Oklahoma Baptist. Unfortunately, that streak was lost on Friday night when the Bison shutout the Reddies 10-0 at home.

Despite great pitching from junior Luke Tebbetts, game one was a showcase of Oklahoma Baptist’s power, as they put up five runs in the top of the first inning. Tebbetts and the Reddie defense held the Bison at five runs until the top of the seventh when they would put up four more runs. It seemed that the first inning took all the wind out of the Reddies’ sails and put a cold touch on the eight-game hot streak.

Rebounding from their 10-0 loss, the Reddies looked to get a jump on the doubleheader planned for Saturday afternoon. That, however, did not seem like it was going to happen judging by the first inning, as Oklahoma Baptist took another early lead, this time by three.

HSU did bounce back, putting up three runs in the bottom of the second. Senior catcher, Jared Gage had a sac fly into right field, allowing the junior DH, Hayden Lessenberry to score. Junior left fielder, Luke McGuire would then lay down the suicide squeeze allowing the speedy, senior center fielder, Tadarious Hawkins to beat the throw home. Finishing off the inning, senior first baseman, Hunter Mayall picked up an RBI single to knock-in senior right fielder, Jake Gaul.

The Reddies would take their first lead of the series in the bottom of the third by putting up three more runs. McGuire and Mayall would each pick up RBIs interrupted only by a bases loaded walk to allow Hawkins to score again.

Mayall would pick up another RBI in the bottom of the fifth and the Bisons put

DOWN THE PIPE — Zach Eschberger delivers a hard strike. one more up themselves in the top of the seventh. However, HSU had a reply to Oklahoma Baptist’s seventh inning homerun with another three-run inning, as McGuire doubled to knock-in Gage and Mayall went yard with a two-run homerun. The Reddies wrapped it up with a 10-5 to win in game two, junior pitcher Chris Hunt improved to 3-6 on the season.

A race to the finish and a battle of the bats ended in a pitching duel, of which HSU did not come out on top. The Reddies were the first on the board, thanks to a wild pitch from the Bisons allowing Lessenberry to score. Oklahoma Baptist came through in the end and put up two in the top of the seventh to finish off the Reddies and take the series 2-1.

SWING AND A MISS — Tadarious Hawkins swings a clean cut through a fastball.