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THEVISTA MELTON GALLERY UCOSA OFFICERS REOPENS RECEIVE PARKING PERKS
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University of Central Oklahoma
UCO GOLFERS
WRAP UP SEASON • Page 7
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THURSDAY • October 25, 2012
After two years of remodeling, the gallery reopens today.
UCOSA officers may accept faculty/staff parking decals as an unofficial benefit of their position.
Photo by Cyn Sheng Ling, The Vista
LUKE LOFTISS, Contributing Writer The UCO College of Fine Arts and Design will celebrate the reopening of The Melton Gallery on Thursday, Oct. 25 with a special exhibition and reception held from 4-7 p.m. at the Melton Gallery, located inside the Art and Design building. The event is free and open to the general public and will feature art from David Phelps and Kevin Tero as well as from UCO’s own Art and Design students. Also on display is the 1897 Thomas Moran oil painting Venice at Sunset. Hor d’oeuvres and champagne will be served and music provided by UCO Music Faculty and guitarist Edgar Cruz. The reopening comes after two years of remodeling and renovations, which improved safety, installed new track lighting and ash hardwood floors. The new Melton gallery will now also rotate the artworks on display every six to ten weeks. The entire Melton Gallery collection is valued at over $4 million. “It’s really exciting to be able to exhibit the work of two artists who are very active in the community,” said Zina Gelona Director of the Office of Galleries and Collections for the College of Fine Arts and Design. The two artists in question, Phelps and Tero are award winning and widely collected both in the United States and abroad. Phelps in fact taught at UCO from 1989-1994 and was the first teacher to teach sculpting at UCO. His sculpture Pastoral Dreamer will be on display alongside his numerous other works, which include concaved figures, which make use of lighting and perspective to create optical illusions for the viewer. “He said build me a gallery and I’ll come back,” Gelona said. Phelps’ artwork is also collected prominently at the Hahn Ross gallery in Santa Fe New Mexico. Tero’s award winning paintings, 15 of which are featured are not his only work on display. Tero is also an architect and actually undertook the engineering of the remodel of the gallery himself. “I’d like to thank Dr. Clinton and the College of Fine Arts and Design for allowing me the creating power to do this,” said Gelona. “It was a labor of love,” she said, “I’m probably the only one eccentric enough to do it.” Great care has been taken to protect the Moran painting on exhibit with state of the art security systems installed to counter any potential thieves. The wall it occupies is equipped with motion detectors as well as alarms set to automatically alert police if the painting is tilted or otherwise moved. Among the UCO students whose work is on display, graduate student Shikoh Shiraiwa’s painted triptych entitled Sunflowers occupies a large space on the gallery wall near the Moran showpiece. Shiraiwa was able to take a picture of his work displayed alongside Moran’s and email it to his father back in Tokyo. According to Gelona having their work presented together with well-established and world famous artists is inspiring for students and a point of pride that they can always carry with them.
Students walk through the Liberal Arts faculty parking lot, Oct. 24. UCOSA officers have the option to use any of the five faculty lots on campus. Photos by Aliki Dyer, The Vista
• BRYAN TRUDE, Senior Staff Writer • Members of the UCOSA executive board are allowed to upgrade their student parking permits to faculty/staff permits for no extra charge, the Vista has learned following an investigation into the government body’s benefits. According to UCOSA President Alex Braden, the board is allowed to upgrade their permits as a matter of convenience, due to the large number of meetings the board members attend across campus. “We get faculty and staff passes. We still pay the same price for a regular parking pass. This came about way before I was even at the university, and I am a senior now, so this has been going on for quite awhile,” Braden said. “Everyone’s always paid the $100 a year as with any other parking pass. The reason behind it is there are a lot of meetings we have to go to across campus in a lot of different buildings, and so it just saves time for everybody over there. That’s the whole purpose of that.”
“I’m definitely for it. Thery’re always here, and I feel like they should be able to park closer to the buildings.” Braden also stated that the program is optional, however he himself participates in it, and that the benefit program is undocumented. Requests for more information on UCOSA benefits, made by written letter under the Freedom of Information Act, and hand-delivered by the Vista on Oct. 4, to both the offices of UCOSA and the office of Dr. Kathryn Gage, Vice President for Student Affairs, have not been responded to as of press time for this article. There are 54 designated parking lots servicing UCO facilities in the
Edmond area, Out of those 54 lots, a vast majority is designated commuter or multipermit parking. In total, only five are reserved 24/7 for the exclusive use of UCO’s over 800 faculty and staff. Five more lots and small portions of three others are marked as faculty-exclusive only between the hours of 7 a.m. and 4 p.m.
“Just because they are in government, they’re respected, yes, but they are still students. They should get the same rights as everyone else has.” Students interviewed by the Vista provided a variety of opinions on the program. “I’m definitely for it. They’re always here, and I feel like they should be able to park closer to the buildings,” Sharae Edwards, junior nursing major, said. “It’s probably just a bad idea, simply because the student governments are students, and are just the same as the rest of the students,” Cameron Barnett, freshman nursing major, said. “Just because they are in government, they’re respected, yes, but they are still students. They should get the same rights as everyone else has.” When the Vista reached out to faculty members for their input, the response was much more opinionated. “I know that faculty are upset about the lack of space in the parking lots that we use, so I don’t think faculty will be too thrilled to find out how spaces are being filled,” Dr. Elizabeth Overman, assistant professor of political science and president of the UCO chapter of the American Association of Uni-
versity Professors, said. “The other problem is that this is a public university, where egalitarianism should be a principle, and this is an inegalitarian measure. We try to be equal, people have equal access, equal standing in terms that we all park in the parking lots and walk in if we are able.” Other members of the faculty saw the issue as indicative of a greater problem concerning faculty parking on campus. “What I do object to is the new parking places that are reserved for the vice presidents of the university, because they already have their reserved spots over at the Admin building. I don’t really care if students and UCOSA can park there,” Dr. David Von Minden, professor of forensic science, said. “If it is on the books, it’s on the books, it should not be a problem. If it’s not, it should probably be put on the books...I think UCOSA, the executive body, needs to put that in writing somewhere, see whether the President will sign off on it.” Braden, when interviewed, stressed that UCOSA executive members still pay the $100 parking decal fee all students pay, and the upgrade program is optional.