UGA News Roundup

Put on your dancin’ shoes!

The UGA dance department is hosting a Community Dance Day Celebration on Sunday, Oct. 9 from 1:30 to 4 p.m. The event is free, but you need to register in advance by calling (706) 542-8579,

The free event will be held in the Dance Building on the UGA campus, and the public is invited. Plan to park in the deck near the

Classes for children and adults will start at 1:30 and include ballroom dance (for ages 12 and up), creative movement (ages 4 -11) and a discussion of dance performance. There’s a reception at 2:15 and then, at 3 p.m., an hour-long performance by the CORE Concert Dance Company, the UGA Ballet Ensemble, the Ballroom Performance Group and community guest performers from the East Athens Dance Center and Classic City Dance.

Yee haw! Do-se-do!

The Friends of the will host A Highfalutin’ Hootenanny on Friday, Oct. 14. Things will get underway at 6:30 p.m. with drinks and music by String Theory. Supper follows at 7 p.m., and then dancing to the Good Vibrations band.

is providing barbecue sandwiches and is supplying the beer. Atlanta’s King of Pops will cool down Hootenanny guests with gourmet popsicles, featuring flavors such as chocolate sea salt, coconut lemongrass and grapefruit mint.

Tickets are $75 per person for those 41 and older and $50 for those 40 and younger. To purchase tickets, by Oct. 3, call call 706/542-4662 or visit the museum’s website.

The conference, Georgia Promoting Student Success (GPS2): Navigating College Life, will be on Tuesday, Oct. 18, from 5-9 p.m. in room 404-E of the Biological Sciences Building. Sponsors include Multicultural Services and Programs, the UGA Career Center and the Residence Hall Association. Student participants may attend concurrent sessions on effective conflict resolution, securing financial aid, overcoming adversity, safety and social media, career planning and personal health. For more information, call 706-542-5773 or click here.

Pardon me, boys, is that the Chattanooga Choo-choo? Big band sound is coming to the with the Glenn Miller Orchestra on Tuesday, Oct. 11 at 8 p.m. in Hodgson Concert Hall. Tickets are $20-$39 with special discounts for UGA students.

The Glenn Miller Orchestra is directed by trombonist Gary Tole, who leads the orchestra in authentic performances from the big band era.

Born in Clarinda, Iowa, in 1904, Glenn Miller formed a band in 1938, Emphasizing the sounds of the reed section, the band created a unique and easily recognizable style set his band apart and broke attendance records up and down the East Coast. Record-breaking recordings soon followed. From 1938 to 1944, the Glenn Miller Orchestra produced a string of Billboard hits that included “Pennsylvania 6-5000,” “Tuxedo Junction,” “In the Mood,”  “Stardust,” “Chattanooga Choo Choo,”  “A String of Pearls” and “That Old Black Magic.” By 1940, the Glenn Miller Orchestra had topped all other bands in Down Beat Magazine’s Sweet Band Poll.

On October 1942, Alton Glenn Miller became part of the Army Specialist Corps. He organized the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band. In less than a year, his band gave over 800 performances, including 500 radio broadcasts heard by millions.

In December 1944 Miller flew to Paris to make advance arrangements for his band’s upcoming tour of Europe. The transport plane carrying Miller disappeared, and the legendary bandleader was never seen again.

To purchase concert tickets, see www.uga.edu/pac or call the Performing Arts Center box office at 706/542-4400 or toll free at 888/289-8497.

 Eileen Kennedy, assistant professor of pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences in the , has received an award from the National Institutes of Health for more than $570,600 over the next three years. Her project will look at specific mechanisms related to breast cancer.

Kennedy joined the College of Pharmacy in 2010. Her cancer research focuses on studying spatiotemporal regulation of kinases as it relates to cancer. Kinases are enzymes that help regulate signaling processes. They have been implicated in development and disease issues, including cancer.

Kennedy’s goal is to develop synthetic agents to use as investigative tools. She hopes to uncover specific cell-signaling events in breast cancer.

The University of Georgia Foundation has given $750,000 to UGA for scholarship support. University administration and the Office of Admissions will use the funding to meet critical scholarship needs.

“Of all the ways the foundation supports the University of Georgia and its students, the provision of scholarship funding has important and tangible benefits,” said Bill Young, Jr., chairman of the University of Georgia Foundation board of trustees. “This funding will help make attending UGA a reality for some deserving students who might not otherwise be able to attend.”

He doesn’t get a statue, a la Abraham Baldwin, but R. Chappelle Matthews does get a bust.

Matthews served in the Georgia House of Representatives for 28 years, representing Athens and UGA. He promoted the importance of education and championed programs at the university—especially public service and outreach.

Born in Athens in 1908, Matthews graduated from UGA in 1933. After attending Southern Law School, he returned to Athens in 1934 to practice law. He was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, where he chaired the university system committee, among other duties.

In 1951, he sponsored a successful constitutional amendment that instituted a 3 percent sales tax to support public education. Actions like these earned him the titles of “Mr. University System” and “Mr. Higher Education” among his colleagues. Matthews died in 1986.

A bust will be dedicated on Friday, Sept. 30 at 10 a.m. in front of the Treanor House on 1240 South Lumpkin Street.