When it came time for Tim Taunton, Professor of Ceramics and Sculpture, to come up with a service project for his Cornerstone class, he didn’t have to look very far.

Taunton teamed with Sallie Keith’s art students at West Side Magnet School, right across the street from the Lamar Dodd Art Center, to build ceramic totem poles to celebrate the arts.

“This is not the first time I have had my students work with Sallie's students on a project, so it seemed like a natural sort of direction for me to take, with them being so conveniently located,” he said.

Taunton’s students, part of the “Life Without Art?” class, helped Keith’s middle-schoolers make the clay parts that formed the seven separate totem poles. The idea of the totem pole came from Keith, Taunton said.

“The pieces are like decorated beads, only on a large scale,” he said. “A few of my ceramic majors were also involved in the project. We brought the pieces back over to my area (in the art center) and they helped me dip them in glaze, load them in the kiln, fire them, then repack them for transport back to West Side. This was no small task, either. It was very much a group effort.”

The combined classes met in Keith’s classroom at West Side to work on the project. Even West Side’s principal, Dr. Cynthia McCloud, got in on the action, helping carve a piece featuring the school’s name.
The completed work will be unveiled at West Side’s fine arts family night at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 2 in the school’s fine arts building.

The professor said he had no idea when he started the project what the two groups were going to do together.

“We knew that our theme was the arts, and we were going to be working with clay, but that’s about all we knew at first,” Taunton said. “The totem pole idea kind of evolved as we all worked together.”

Keith said her students got into the spirit of the project.

“They really liked working with Tim’s class, and they embraced the theme,” she said. “You’ll see images of music notes, theater masks and paint palettes everywhere, as well as some nice textures and patterns.”

To mount the poles, Taunton set rebar rods in terracotta flower pots filled with concrete. The pots will be “planted” in the ground, allowing them to be stored inside when school isn’t in session.

“It occurred to me that the poles look like exotic, artsy plants, so the flower pots enhance that effect,” he said.

Keith said more than 100 West Side children teamed with the Cornerstone class.
“It was wonderful to see all those students of different ages, working on the project,” she said. “I think they all got something from each other.”

Taunton said he has participated professionally with other artists in collaborative work.

“I know that it can be a rich learning experience,” he said. “As a teacher, I am more concerned with what you learn as a result of the process rather than the finished product. But in this case, Sallie and I felt we were successful with both.”

Students re-enact WWI tactics with laser tag – Jan. 27, LaGrange Daily News

If you haven’t already done so, please contact your state legislators about the governor’s proposed elimination of the Tuition Equalization Grant. Here at LaGrange College, it would mean a loss of more than a half million dollars a year in assistance to our students. Already, committees are meeting on the subject, so we must act quickly. President McAlexander and a group of students will be traveling to the Capitol on Tuesday; it would be especially helpful if calls or letters reached legislators before then. Suggested talking points and a letter template can be found here. This link can help you determine your hometown legislators.

The Frank and Laura Lewis Library will celebrate its first anniversary on Tuesday by providing “free drinks” at Java City to all library users. Simply request a ticket at the Circulation Desk and present it at Java City for a free drink of your choice. Library director Loren Pinkerman said the library’s gate count has doubled and circulation is up 20 percent in the past year, and use of many of the library’s databases also has seen a marked increase.

The LaGrange College Career Center will sponsor a World of Careers career fair from 11:15 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. Feb. 16 at Pitts Dining Hall. Employers will be recruiting for summer, part-time, full-time and internship work. Already registered are Radio Disney, Baldwin County Board of Education, Camp Glisson, Kimbles, LaGrange Police, Mike Patton Auto Family, Muscogee County Schools, Troup County Schools, Twin Cedars and University of Phoenix. A resume proofing and seminar will be from 3 to 4 p.m. Feb. 8 in the Lewis Library.

Senior Morgan DeAnn Shields presented her paper Jan. 7 “Eagle Clawed: Why Operation Desert One Was Undertaken” at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association in Atlanta. The paper dealt with the Carter Administration’s attempts to rescue the American embassy hostages in Iran in 1980. This is a rare feat for an undergraduate student to present at a conference almost entirely consisting of professors and a few graduate students.

Associate Professor of Political Science John A. Tures presented two papers Jan. 7-9 at the Southern Political Science Association in Atlanta. They were “Rattling the Hesam: International Distractions from Internal Problems in Iran” and “The Role of Ideology for African American Candidates in Statewide Elections” on two different panels. He also was a discussant on a third panel (Rational Explanations of International Processes) and a roundtable participant on “Race and the Study of Politics in the South: Trends in the Southern Academy” and “Stealth Reconstruction: The Role Biracial Coalitions Played in Moving the South Towards a Competitive Two-Party System.”