Enlarge Text Size
Normal |Large |Extra-Large

Volume 1, Issue 4
September 2005

Table of Contents:

A Message from the President
From the Editor
VASTA Conference 2005 – Glasgow, UK
Information for ATHE 2006
Your Board at Work
Meet Your New Board Members

A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

Lisa Wilson

Fellow VASTAns,
I hope your fall is off to a good start, for those of you in academia--that your classes and production schedules are well underway and for those of you in private practice--that the return from summer finds your offices full of new clients and interesting work. I am on sabbatical this fall and trying to keep my obligations under control along with my writing and creative obligations.

As you will read below, the Glasgow conference was a tremendous success. Thanks to all who created, supported, attended, and/or presented at the conference. Special thanks to Lise Olson the dreamer, creator and godmother of the conference. Your service to VASTA is and always has been of the highest level; we offer you a standing ovation for your work on this conference.

If you were not among the 105 who attended the Glasgow conference you won’t know that along with you, Rena Cook and I had to miss the conference due to health complications. Rena has had some neck problems that prevented her from attending the conferences this summer. On her physician’s advice, Rena has also had to resign her position as the President Elect of VASTA. The good news is she is doing better and will continue as a board member for her term of 3 years.

You will be pleased to hear that Phil Thompson is our new President Elect. He assumes those duties immediately, including serving as the VASTA Focus Group representative to ATHE (The Association for Theatre in Higher Education). Phil will assume the office of President following the end of the August 2006 VASTA conference. Phil brings a wealth of experience to the office: he has been secretary and board member, he serves on the advisory board for URTA, he heads the voice program at UC Irvine, is a master teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework and teaches Dudley Knight's Speech Work, has coached voice and text at Utah Shakespearean Festival, and associate edited, as well as writing for the Voice and Speech Review. Thank you for accepting this office Phil. Please send him your warm congratulations and thanks.

I also had to forego ATHE and Glasgow; my husband’s heart murmur became much worse this summer and due to the complications of dealing with an HMO our surgical referral could not avoid conflict with the conference dates. Happily, my husband is doing well now, his mitral valve repair and maze procedure were successful and though I missed out on a wonderful conference, I am able blessed to have supportive colleagues and a wonderful lifetime partner.

The board has two farewells to say. Eric Armstrong, our web guru and board member, is going off the board. Eric has given so much to this organization; we are deeply in his debt. But if you are on the VOX you know he is busy at York University and will continue to be part of VASTA. Ginny Kopf is finishing her board term as well; her voice as a private practitioner has been extremely valuable on the board. She too has been model of service in numerous areas and thankfully will continue on as our Mentor-Mentee Matchmaker. Thank you both for your generosity and support over the years. We will miss you at the board meeting in November.

Change of Board Membership: Unfortunately, newly elected board member Cynthia Blaise has found it necessary to resign from the board.  However, the reason is a very understandable one, and positive for her livelihood and career. Cynthia's coaching practice is keeping her extremely busy and on the road so much of the time she is finds that she is unable to serve as a board member at this time.

Under Article 6 of the VASTA bylaws, the board is extremely pleased to announce that Beth McGee, Associate Professor at Case-Western has accepted an appointment to fulfill the vacated board term. Please welcome Beth and thank her for agreeing to step into this position.

The Shakespeare Around the Globe VSR issue was distributed to those attending the conference in Scotland; we had to publish a limited edition of the journal overseas to hand out to the conference. We are currently getting into the physical publishing of our US edition and it will be mailed out this fall. Please, be sure that you address is current--check the membership directory attachment and update on the website if needed at www.vasta.org.

I hope that you will look at the link to the Membership Directory at the end of the VOICE and be sure that you are able to open it. It is a terrific tool for us in that we can keep updating it and make the newest members available to you, and you can keep a copy of it on your computer desktop. If you are having any troubles please contact Michael Barnes at techdirector@vasta.org or seek out some local computer assistance at your academy, if you are so affiliated.

Our new VASTA conference planner for ATHE, Pamela Christian has an article in the VOICE. Please look it over. She has lots helpful information and is your ATHE contact. I am putting out a call to VASTAns who have never presented at ATHE and are interested in participating in a debut workshop convened by Phil Thompson. Each presenter will lead a hands-on exercise of about 10 minutes in length. If you are interested, submit an exercise proposal to Pamela Christian (pdc@mail.utexas.edu) rather than submitting a separate conference proposal. It will be reviewed for acceptance by a committee. Please contact either Phil or myself if you have questions: pthompso@uci.edu, lisa-wilson@utulsa.edu . The debut workshop will be reviewed and (if desired), the debut presenter can have a written appraisal of their work to include in a promotion portfolio. Chicago should be a good conference, both for ATHE and VASTA.

Later in the fall we will be sending out a call for VASTA member presentations for the Summer VASTA conference. They were such a big success in Philadelphia and Glasgow we are continuing the tradition. Congratulations and thanks to our wonderful membership.

Stay present and keep breathing,
Lisa Wilson
VASTA President

back to top

FROM THE EDITOR

Erica Tobolski

The September issue of VASTA Voice includes important information for VASTA members as well as entertaining stories. You’ll find a link to an updated Membership Directory; check for your name and if corrections need to be made to your contact information, please forward them to Craig Ferre at <ferrec@byuh.edu> or to Craig Ferre, P.O.Box 524, Laie, HI 96762 . While you’re at it, go to the website at <VASTA.org> and check if your Professional Index listing is current. If it needs to be updated, follow the instructions on-site and submit your changes.

Interested in presenting your work to your voice/speech and theatre colleagues? Look for Pamela Christian’s how-to for submitting proposals to present at the Association of Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) conference in August 2006.

Curious as to what the VASTA Board members discussed at the annual summer meeting? Find Phil Thompson’s summary of the minutes to see how your Board is serving you, the members, and the organization as a whole. I promise you it won’t be a boring read.

Speaking of Board Members, Judylee Vivier has polled the new members so that you can get to know their background, interests and ideas for VASTA.

Didn’t get to the conference in Glasgow? Read about it in David Carey’s words as he offers an overview of the exciting and varied events that took place in early August of 2005.

And for a real treat, you can now HEAR members’ impressions of the conference. An exciting addition to VASTA Voice, possible in our new electronic format, is VASTA Voice Radio, where audio clips are posted on the website. Look for a link following David Carey’s article. Many thanks to Eric Armstrong for creating the physical body for my idea.

My personal mission is to spread the word about VASTA. Help me out by identifying yourself as a member, forward your emailed version of the VASTA Voice to those who may be interested, tell your colleagues about us, or all of the above!

Cheers,
Erica Tobolski, Editor

If you have ideas for articles or would like to submit an article for future issues, please contact Erica Tobolski, Editor at tobolski@sc.edu, or Allison Hetzel, Associate Editor at ahetzel25@aol.com.

back to top

VASTA Conference 2005 – Glasgow, UK

David Carey

Glasgow gave VASTAns a warm Scottish greeting for the first conference outside the US – with open arms, a big heart, and bright sunshine. Over a hundred delegates gathered at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in August 2005 for a lively experience focused on the theme of Breaking Boundaries: Crossing the Cultural Divide. Approximately half the participants had crossed the Atlantic from the US and Canada; others came from Australia, Denmark, Germany and South Africa; and, of course, there was a strong contingent from the UK. While many were attending a VASTA conference for the first time, all seemed to enjoy this unique opportunity to share in professional dialogue, vocal practice and workshop experience.

Events got off to an exceptional start, with a reception in Glasgow’s magnificent City Chambers. In the ornate surroundings of 19 th century mercantile splendour, we were welcomed by the representative of Glasgow’s Lord Provost (Mayor) in full official regalia and guid Scots vernacular before being encouraged to enjoy our stay and make the most of what the city has to offer. In our case, this seemed to be the opportunity to increase our dialect archives, to explore the city’s associations with art nouveau architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, to sample the wide range of shops and restaurants and single malts, and to enjoy the proximity to Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital and Festival City.

The conference proper was centred on practical workshops given by Kevin Crawford, Barbara Houseman, and Donna Soto-Morettini. Each participant attended two 2-hour sessions with each practitioner over three days.

Kevin Crawford is a founder member of the Roy Hart Theatre who has worked extensively in Europe and North America. He was Lecturer in Drama at the Samuel Beckett Centre for Drama at Trinity College, Dublin and is now Director of Actor Training at the Accademia dell’Arte in Arezzo, Italy. His workshops explored deep physical work on breath and vocal release, with a particular emphasis on the spine and the sacrum. This and subsequent contact improvisation work on text combined to achieve a physical release and embodiment of the language that produced new and often surprising expressive choices. Kevin’s clear and responsive teaching style facilitated a rich and memorable experience.

Barbara Houseman is a highly experienced voice and text coach and British theatre director who has worked with many of the UK’s leading actors and directors. Her book Finding Your Voice has become a standard text in many of the country’s drama schools. Her workshops focused on techniques for investigating and connecting to text. Using examples from Shakespeare – although she emphasised that her approach applies equally to modern writers – she began by exploring the structures and rhythms inherent in a text – verse and sense rhythms, the shapes of thoughts and lines – and extended this into dynamic and physical work on language. Sharing her experience of working with both student and professional actors, Barbara’s energy and insight were both infectious and informative.

Donna Soto-Morettini is an American actress/singer and theatre director who has been working in the UK for over 15 years. During that time she has served as Head of Acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama and Head of Acting and Dance for the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. She is currently Head of Musical Theatre at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Her well structured and facilitated sessions enabled participants to experiment with the range of vocal qualities and complimentary elements of style found in popular song. We explored twang, belt, growl, flip, creak, bend, aspirate, falling off and vibrato fade (amongst others), and all with comparative ease and safety. If you’re perplexed by any of these terms, you can investigate further in Donna’s book Popular Singing: Performance and Practice, to be published in 2006.

Complementing the workshops was a rich potpourri of associated events. Outstanding was the keynote speech given by Cicely Berry, who took us on a journey through the adventure of language and orality as she has encountered it over a career that has spanned almost 60 years and taken her across cultural divisions throughout the worlds (old, new and third). She spoke movingly of her work with high security prisoners in Britain, with children from the favelas of Brazil, and with performers in Africa, Australia, China, Croatia and beyond.

The conference also offered the excellent opportunity to hear from VASTA members world-wide through an extensive number of papers, presentations and workshops. Most of these were held on the final day of the conference, VASTA Day, when the RSAMD rang with voices engaging in everything from Korean P’ansori through Taoist Healing Sounds and Fitzmaurice Voicework to Shouting and Screaming, Choral Speech and Umlaut! The Musical. Along the way you might have been exhorted to engage with the multi-cultural voice, met Australian actors speaking American, taken a pathway to the lyric breath of the Romantic poets, transformed into an archetypal Trickster, or breached the ultimate cultural divide in the company of transsexual men, and more. I wish I had been able to split myself in three and sample workshops on the work of Rudolph Steiner, and working with students with vocal injury, and the benefits of kinesiology. Maybe next year in Chicago!

I have tried to capture something of the excitement and energy and entertainment that was VASTA 2005. If you were also there, perhaps you’d like to submit your own report to VASTAVOX. If you weren’t, I hope you now have some idea of what you missed. Congratulations to Lise Olson, Conference Director, for such an unforgettable week, and to all VASTAns who made the journey to Glasgow! As they say in Scotland, haste ye back!

David Carey
Assistant Conference Director

Visit VASTA Voice Radio at http://www.vasta.org/newsletter/vasta_voice_radio/Fall_2005.mp3 to hear member interviews . The total length is 7 minutes, 37 seconds long; the file size is 7MB. The file will play on most audio/media players and works best with high-speed connections. --Editor

back to top

Information for ATHE 2006

Pamela Christian

Hello Everyone: I’m the VASTA Focus Group Conference Planner for the 2006 ATHE Conference. ATHE at 20: Theatrical Milestones: Past Legacies, Present Possibilities, Future Strategies, August 3-6, 2006, Palmer House Hilton Hotel, Chicago, IL. The VASTA conference will follow ATHE in Chicago (information on VASTA will be coming out soon).

This announcement includes a large amount of detailed information. Hopefully you can just scroll down to what you find relevant. Hard copies will be sent out in the next few weeks.

For new members: What is ATHE?

ATHE, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, is an organization that brings together educators from a wide variety of theatre disciplines (acting, movement, directing, musical theatre, history/criticism, etc.). The ATHE conference (an annual event) offers you a great opportunity to reach out and share your work with colleagues from any, or all, of these other disciplines. If you are interested in submitting a proposal for ATHE 2006, read on. . .

Proposal Application Process - Deadline November 1 st

All forms go directly to ATHE. I see them only after they are submitted.

While it is not required, it can be helpful to contact me during the application process. I will be glad to review and respond to any proposal.

• Application forms will be posted soon on ATHE website www.athe.org.
• Forms must be submitted electronically from this site no later that November 1 st.
• When you complete your proposal, click “submit” and you will get a confirmation and recap of what you submitted.
• Incomplete forms will not be accepted.

Types of Proposals

• Workshops are for demonstrating practical, hands-on work. Workshops usually have a minimum of three (3) presenters but can include more. *Be aware of time constraints when choosing number of participants.
• Paper Panels can have no more than three (3) speakers plus a non-presenting Chair. Panel participants can serve as Chair.
• Debut Panels - VASTA encourages debut panels and has already reserved one (1) debut panel slot. Presentations can include any kind of 10-minute voice exercise as long as the person is a first time presenter. Please send your “proposed exercise to present” directly to me.
• PedagogyDiscussion Panels - VASTA is looking for several discussion panels that focus on particular voice topics. Each panelist is to make a short statement followed by group discussion. Discussion panels usually have a minimum of three (3) presenters but can include more. *Be aware of time constraints when choosing number of participants.
• Double Sessions use twice the time (180 min) and count twice in the rankings.
• Single Submissions are sponsored by only one (1) Focus Group.
• Multidisciplinary Submissions - ATHE strongly supports multidisciplinary presentations. These need to be sponsored by at least three (3) Focus Groups. Conference Planners for each Focus Group must be contacted. If you have an idea for a multidisciplinary panel but don’t have a group assembled, please contact me and I will help you to reach interested parties from other Focus Groups.
• Seminars are roundtable discussions with up to twenty participants each. You can submit a paper to more than one seminar, but only one will accept as sessions run concurrently. There are four seminar topics to choose from: Diversity and the Musical, At the Crossroads of Theory and Theatre History, Theatre/Pedagogy and Producing Shakespeare in the Contemporary Academy. 250 word abstracts due by November 1 st.

What Happens to My Proposal?

All proposals must be sent electronically to ATHE by November 1 st. ATHE checks for content and sends everything back to me (early November). I have a few days to review the proposals before sending them on to the VASTA Board. The VASTA Board and Conference Planner separately assess and rank proposals, then send this information back to ATHE. All participants are notified of proposal results by March 1, 2006.

How Does Ranking Work?

The number of panels available to any Focus Group is limited based on *number of proposals submitted, *number of rooms available at the conference site, *types of proposals submitted, etc. While there is no set formula for ranking, the goal is to include those presentations that best reflect the needs and interests of the given Focus Group and ATHE Conference. As Conference Planner, I serve as a go-between (and advocate) for proposals in the submission process. If, for example, two panels are duplicating material and, in essence, canceling each other out, I will contact these panels to help them combine or re-direct. Or, if several multidisciplinary panels are proposed, I might suggest that one of the panels be submitted through another Focus Group. The idea is to give each panel whatever advantage possible given the combination of proposals being submitted.

Answers to FAQs

• All participants are required to register for the conference. You will know if you have been selected to present prior to the due date for registration.
• Presenters are limited to two (2) appearances per conference.
• Session Coordinator is the person who puts together the panel and organizes the participants. Session Chair leads the panel itself at the conference.
• Each session is allowed one free piece of A/V equipment, if ordered by May 1 st.
• Payment is required if ordered after May 1 st, or if other equipment is required such as VCR, DVD or LCD. Grants are available for equipment costs.

Where Can I Get More Information?

• If you have questions about the submission process or if you just want to talk through your ideas, please don’t hesitate to contact me at pdc@mail.utexas.edu. Be sure to put ATHE on the subject line.
• All of this information will be available soon on the ATHE website www.athe.org.

Many thanks! I look forward to the process ahead and to an amazing conference in Chicago. - Pamela Christian

P. Christian, Dept. of Theatre and Dance, UT Austin, Austin, TX 78712-1168
(o) 512-232-5313, pdc@mail.utexas.edu

back to top

Your Board at Work

Phil Thompson

The board met in Glasgow Scotland on August 8, 9 and 13.

Attending were:

Board Member: Ginny Kopf (GK)
Board Member: Eric Armstrong (EA)
Board Member: Judylee Vivier (JLV)
Board Member: Rocco DalVera (RDV)
Board Member: Phil Thompson (PT)
Past President: Kate Ufema (KU)
Treasurer: Craig Ferre (CF)
Journal Editor: Mandy Rees (MR)
Director of Technology: Michael Barnes (MB)
2005 Conference Planner: Lise Olsen (LO)
2006 Conference Planner: Phil Timberlake
Newsletter Editor: Erica Tobolski (ET)
Incoming Board Member: Joanna Cazden (JK)
Incoming Secretary: Lynn Watson (LW)
ATHE Conference Planner: Pamela Christian (PC)
Archivist: Amanda Durst (AD)

Excused were.

President Lisa Wilson (LW)
Board Member Rena Cook (RC)
Board Member Marya Lowry (ML)

During our initial meeting on August 8, reports were given on the ongoing business of the organization. Below you will find the highlights of that information. The major thrust of the board’s actions at this time will be to maintain the health of the organization and its ongoing programs and outreach, and to begin implementation of the VASTA VISION 2014 plans.

The Journal is complete and a UK printing was done for the conference attendees in Scotland. The US printing and distribution has been delayed due to the dissolution of the former distribution agreement with Applause. Following discussion the board supports purchasing an ISBN number for this journal edition and pursuing further talks with a potential distributor.

The Manual of Operations has been updated and edited by Phil Thompson and will be posted to the VASTA website and passed into the keeping of the new secretary Lynn Watson.

The Mentorship program continues on successfully, and Ginny Kopf, who will remain its director, is seeking an ongoing influx of new Mentors for the requests of Mentees.

The successful conference registration and higher numbers than originally projected will make this a financially successful conference. Kudos to Lise Olson and all her associates.

VASTA is working through Rocco Dal Vera and Phil Thompson to determine its future role and possible advisory capacity to NAST and/or URTA guidelines for voice training curriculum.

The Newsletter Report raised the issue of the increase in available space. Before unveiling the VASTA Voice in February of this year we were publishing two newsletters per year. The current issue is the fourth since that time. It is exciting to be freed from the constraints of printing and mailing, but we may need to find ways to encourage more submissions.

The treasurer gave a close-out report for 2004. The budget had projected a shortfall of $4,150.00 but the actual shortfall was less ($2,203.00). This was partly due to a smaller conference turn out for Philadelphia. We also held a very large and important planning retreat in November, and had predicted that this would be a year in which we have a small shortfall. Craig Ferre also presented an interim budget report for 2005 to date, showing the organization in good stead. The VASTA holdings are growing and we are moving towards a future goal of endowing some projects and scholarships.

Our day long meeting on August 9 gave time for more in depth discussion of issues. Below are highlights of those discussions.

We discussed at length plans for our 2006 conference in Chicago. Our efforts here were directed at generating ideas for our Conference Planner, Phil Timberlake. We agreed that presentation of papers and short workshops by members has been very useful and should continue. We also discussed the length and structure of the conference.

Another topic of central importance in these meetings was the p lanning and implementation of Action Items from the VASTA VISION PLAN:

Our next topic of conversation was governance and elections. Phil Thompson was nominated and elected to the presidency of VASTA. He will assume the presidency after the August 2006 VASTA conference.

We also have three board members concluding their terms after the August 06 board meeting: ML, RDV and PT. KU as Past President (see bylaws) will chair a nominating committee to develop a slate of candidates to fill those positions.

Our final meeting took place at the end of the day on August 13. We shared our thoughts about the conference and made practical plans for the November board meeting to take place in Chicago.

Respectfully submitted
Phil Thompson
Interim Secretary

back to top

Meet Your New Board Members

JudyLee Vivier

I am delighted to welcome our three new VASTA Board members and have asked them to formally introduce themselves to you ... not that they need an introduction. Rena Cook has been a tireless member for a number of years and has served and supported VASTA in many various capacities. Thank you Rena; we are delighted you are on the Board. Joanna Cazden, a slightly more recent member, you will recognize from her generous and informative postings on VASTAVOX. Welcome Joanna. And finally, you’ll meet Beth McGee, who was just positioned on the Board in Cynthia Blaise’s place.  A very warm welcome to all.

Rena Cook : 
I am so pleased to serve on the board of VASTA and work with a sterling group of colleagues and to represent a dedicated, generous group of voice trainers.  I am currently an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma where I teach voice, speech and dialects.  I have a business called Vocal Authority that specializes in corporate and private voice training.  VASTA has been an important part of my life for 14 years; at various times I have been our ATHE conference planner, secretary, Associate Editor of the Voice & Speech Review in the area of heightened text, verse and scansion.  The highlight of my career was spending a year at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where I received an MA in Voice Studies.  Occasionally I am invited to teach American Dialects to British actors, an exciting reverse of our usual work. I am also collaborating on a book about breath with colleagues from England and the US.  Life is not all work, as my family spends most weekends at a lake cottage where we enjoy morning rides on calm waters to watch great blue herons.  Thank you for your vote of confidence in electing me to your board.  I look forward to the next two years working to help VASTA achieve its ambitious vision.

Joanna Cazden:
I have a BA and MFA in theater, both based on Linklater technique; have been a singer-songwriter since mid-1970s and speech pathologist since 1992; and am now half-way through Fitzmaurice certification. I’ve also studied yoga for 30 years, taken dozens of other workshops in singing and bodywork, and taught 10 years of university courses such as voice rehabilitation and speech therapy practicum. So I’m quite a mongrel in my lineage and influences, and expect to remain forever curious about the voice (and the persona/brain/spirit that make it work).

I’m originally from the east coast but currently live in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank. Since 2001 I’ve been a speech/voice therapist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Outpatient Rehabilitation Center. About half of my patients are actors or singers. I also have a small private practice, direct a Yiddish-language chorus, and enjoy opportunities to write for professional and arts journals.

I’ve known of VASTA for a long time and joined in 2001 after meeting other boundary-crossers at the Voice Foundation Symposium. I find VASTA to be an enjoyable tribe of lovely people. In my time on the Board I hope to facilitate the flow of skills and insights between the theater and SLP professions, and help the organization however else I can.

Beth McGee:
Hello fellow voice professionals, I am thrilled to be asked to the VASTA Board-- it has been an aspiration of mine for several years.  I'm Beth McGee, Associate Professor in the Department of Theater and Dance at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.  At Case I teach undergraduate majors and graduate students in our Case-Cleveland Play House Professional Actor Training Program.  I voice and dialect coach for local theaters, consult with private clients, and am an AEA actor.  I've been a member of VASTA since 1991 and can personally attest to its powerful and positive influence on my career and development.

I have a B.S. in Communication/Theater Education from Appalachian State University and an MFA in Acting from the University of Georgia.  In my career I've been fortunate to have studied with Arthur Lessac and his master teachers, Shakespeare & Company, Body-Mind Centering with Vera Orlock, The Royal National Theater Studio, and many short workshops involving Kristin Linklater, Louis Colaianni, Catherine Fitzmaurice and Roy Hart work.  I consider my teaching and coaching an eclectic mix of all these teachers and their theories, constantly evolving with each student I encounter.  I started out my career as a folk singer, and recorded an album, "Love is Teasing" on the Folkways label, which now resides with all Folkways recordings in the Smithsonian Institution.  If anyone would like to know more, they can visit my website at http://www.case.edu/its/itac/ACES/s_mcgee/

Those of you who attended the 2004 VASTA conference in Philadelphia might remember that I also serve Case Western's administration as the Faculty Diversity Officer.  This means that I am the Affirmative Action officer for faculty, investigate allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination, mediate faculty disputes, and am responsible for diversity initiatives for the university's faculty.  At Case I've served as President of the Women's Faculty Association, and on several essential committees that resulted in the re-evaluation and revitalization of Case's undergraduate education and student life, the creation and implementation of Case's new Seminar Approach To General Education, the opening of Case's Flora Stone Mather Center for Women, and the establishment of family-friendly policies to aid retention of women and minority faculty.

In all my spare time(!) I enjoy hiking, gardening and the art of watching urban wildlife.  I'm looking forward to working and sharing ideas with all of you.

back to top

©2005, Voice and Speech Trainers Association

Questions or comments? E-mail us at vastavoice@vasta.org

This site is designed and maintained by VASTA Director of Technology, Michael J. Barnes , with assistance from Chris Neher.

© 1997-2004 The Voice and Speech Trainers Association, Inc.