Stage ready

We've got a guest photographer for the semester, Lee Patton, a senior photo student who is interning with the marketing and communications office. Patton shot this series of the BU Players' dress rehearsal of Jack and Jill. Theatre is interesting, but a little abstract to shoot because you've got these slices of life that have been lifted out of life.

Field hockey generations

In athletics, sometimes the preparation is just as interesting as the game. The story behind the story. A shoot at an afternoon practice several days ago showed BU's field hockey team has a story that runs generations deep.

Head coach Nikki Rhoads (black shirt in the center at right) is 2004 BU alumna and standout player for the Huskies, helping the team to two NCAA championships and two Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference titles. As a coach, she's continued the winning tradition by guiding the Huskies to a 19-1 record and their fourth straight PSAC Championship in 2011.

At practice, Rhoads is joined on the field by her former coach Jan Hutchinson (pink shirt at right), who has returned as a volunteer assistant. Retired since 2010 after 33-year career at BU, Hutchinson doesn't miss the pressure and stress of being a head coach, but loves to stay involved with helping students. "I can't get it out of my system," she says simply.

The magic of band camp

The amplified metronome pumps out a continuous beat of 158 clicks a minute. Nearing weeks end, BU's band is breathing in time. Welcome to the Husky Marching band camp. To get ready for the fall semester, the band arrives on campus a week early and gets to work ... spending more than 40 hours over the next five days getting in synch.

Marching band director Gifford Howarth works with the students just outside the stadium. In addition to directing the band, Howarth is a well-known mallet percussionist whose conducted clinics around the world.

Below: One of the band's drum majors, Brittany Baselice (center, neon shirt), directs marching from the field. Senior Nathan Hawk works with the drum corps. Color guard captain Kayla Pipas demonstrates a routine.

Celebrating peak human performance

The summer Olympics will begin in London this July and the international press is already speculating about whether we'll see more records broken in track and field. Particularly because Usain Bolt of Jamaica in 2009 smashed his own world record in the 100-meter dash by over a tenth of a second with a time of 9.58 seconds. 

Japanese television station NHK recently sent a news crew to Bloomsburg to interview mathematics professor Reza Noubary about his formula for predicting the ultimate record in the 100 meters. Based on current data, Noubary pegs the ultimate 100 meter record at 9.40 seconds with a 90 percent confidence rate.

The news crew, which included a journalist, sound technician, camera operator and producer/director, had already interviewed Bolt in Jamaica. They spent hours with Noubary and went over the math in detail ... taping the professor explaining his work at a white board and in his office. For track and field aficionados, this is serious business.

I photographed discreetly, not wanting to interfere with their work. When the crew was finished, I asked, "Reza, what's your record for the 100 meter?"

"11. 3 seconds," he said, but shrugged it off ... it's unofficial and he was never able to duplicate it. His official best in 11.4.

What the news crew didn't know and what Dr. Noubary was too modest to mention is that he's an extraordinary athlete in his own right. He played professional soccer for a year before going to college. And he remains a exceptional athlete. (Just ask members and alumni of the Bloomsburg soccer team with whom he's played and scrimmaged over the years.) 

Science is helping us understand how to improve peak human performance, but athletics is still a very human endeavor. The human focus has been a consistent touchstone of Noubary's work. He was one of the first people I interviewed when I came to Bloomsburg 20 years ago as a writer. 

A native of Iran, Noubary was working on mathematical models to help engineers simulate earthquakes and design stronger buildings. The interview touched on the challenges of solving a problem, but the thing I recall after 20 years is that this was also personal. Iran often experiences earthquakes and they can be deadly. Noubary had a sense of urgency, passion, to use his knowledge to help make earthquakes less deadly.

PS. 

Noubary is also a beloved professor and teacher who often brings cookies to class on test days to help student performance. 

Final presentations

The end of a semester at Bloomsburg, especially spring semester, always brings a flurry of activity.

A hallmark of the university is the opportunity for undergraduates to conduct research with faculty and their fellow students. The final weeks include several events dedicated to students presenting their work.

The top photo is a nursing student presenting on a study related to diabetes as part of the university Honors Program. 

Below that are photos of an anthropology student discussing archaeology and two education students discussing their work as part of Bloomsburg's Research Day, in which students from all the university's college present their work at locations throughout campus.

The final photo, taken by communications student worker CJ Shultz, is at the Frederick Douglass Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Conference held in April. 

It's remarkable to see how poised, professional and confident the students become in just a few years.

Athletics and art

We live in a screen-based culture. Televisions, computers, cell-phones, tablets. You're looking at one right now. Our lives are increasingly, and to me a little worryingly, digital. Digital media are powerful tools, but do have we lost something human in the process?

Art and athletics are sometimes conceived as opposites. Depending on your high school, the "jock" and the "arts" crowds were likely two different groups. But I think they share something very powerful in common. At their best, art and athletics remind us of what it means to be human.

Sports reminds us that we are not merely receptors of digital data flashed before our eyes but flesh, bone, blood and spirit. Sports can remind us that striving is valuable simply for the sake of striving.


I'm not a big sports guy. I played soccer as a teenager, but aside from college basketball, I generally don't watch games and I don't care who wins. I've been at Bloomsburg for 20 years and if asked on a given day, I might say that Bloomsburg is a great school for smart jocks. Athletics is an important part of our identity, in a positive way, because the athletes aren't disconnected from the university. They are part of it. Club and intramural athletics are a big part of what we offer as well.

I don't follow the scores, but there are few people on campus I like better than football coach Danny Hale. While I generally do non-athletic photography for Bloomsburg, I shot a portrait of him for a magazine story several years back (The second photo of Hale).

Fast forward a few years and I'm waiting in line at Dunkin Donuts and I get a big bear hug from the coach himself. For Hale, people count. When you're talking with him, you're the most important person in the world and he doesn't forget. It's a quality I've noticed that a lot of leaders share in common.

The field was named in Danny Hale's honor last week (April 28) and it couldn't have been done for a better guy. And maybe, this coming fall, I'll go to some more games.

The photos here (with the exception of the Hale portrait) were shot last fall very early in the season. Sports is not my specialty, my lenses tend toward wide angle rather than telephoto end, but it was a lot of fun.

The final photo of the Husky mascot I believe was taken by my colleague Jaime North. We traded cameras at the sidelines for a while during the game and I'm pretty sure he took that one.

Click on any image to see them larger.

Mind your manners

One of the interesting aspects of Bloomsburg University's College of Business is the Zeigler Institute for Professional Development. Sure, this is going to read a bit like shameless marketing, but happily, it's happens to be true.

The Institute is created through an endowment from Terry Zeigler '76 and JoAnn Schultz Zeigler '77. The Zeigler Institute is all about cultivating the professionalism ... including the soft skills that aren't found in text books.

Like how to manage a formal dinner. Which fork goes with what? How quickly should you eat? And how do you manage spaghetti? In short, dining etiquette. And who couldn't use a refresher in that once in a while.

Through the Zeigler Institute, upper level business students get to experience a formal dinner guided by Maria Bauman, catering manager for Aramark at BU and a pro at all things in the dining room.

From a photographic perspective, this is a challenging event. There's just not much light to work with or room to move in. Food and dining photography is a specialty in its own right and it's not an area I'm especially practiced in (yet). But it was a lot of fun to watch.

The bottom photo is of the Aramark team working behind the scenes at a large event several years ago. Though it's just tangentially related, I included it because I think illustrates teamwork wonderfully and it's one of my favs.

Click on any photo to see them larger.