UIndy News

From left, Dean Franke, Jon Crabiel, Mark Ortwein, Peter Hansen and Gary Walters are the Icarus Ensemble. Ortwein and Hansen are UIndy music instructors.

Eight years after its founding at the University of Indianapolis, the Icarus Ensemble has produced an album.

Featuring current and former UIndy Department of Music faculty, the innovative classical-jazz-pop quintet will play the Jazz Kitchen on Sunday evening to launch its self-titled debut CD, a nearly all-original collection of challenging and engaging instrumental music.

“I think we as composers and players have figured out what makes a cool sound with these particular instruments,” says bassist Peter Hansen, who is in his 32^nd season with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and has taught at UIndy since 1995.

In Icarus, Hansen is joined by fellow UIndy instructor and ISO regular Mark Ortwein on soprano sax, bass clarinet and bassoon; ISO violinist and former UIndy instructor Dean Franke; and pianist Gary Walters and drummer/percussionist Jon Crabiel, both of whom teach at Butler University and also perform at times with ISO. Hansen, Ortwein and Walters are the ensemble’s chief composers.

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An acrylic piece by Gerburg Garmann

The talents of three UIndy faculty and staff members will be on display this month at the Wheeler Arts Community in Fountain Square.

Opening Friday, Unleashing Creativity: 24/7 features acrylic paintings by Gerburg Garmann, professor of Modern Languages and assistant dean for Interdisciplinary Studies & Service Learning; photography by Greta Pennell, associate professor of Teacher Education; and oil paintings by Jeannine Allen, art director in the Communications & Marketing division.

An opening artist reception from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday will be part of the city’s IDADA First Friday art tour. Admission is free. The exhibition will continue through March 27 at the Wheeler, 1035 Sanders St.

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Friday also will bring a visit by the Singing Men of Ohio, the men’s glee club from Ohio University.

Known for a wide-ranging repertoire that can include pop, folk, spiritual and world music, the group will perform at 7:30 p.m. in Ruth Lilly Performance Hall of the Christel DeHaan Fine Arts Center. They are directed by composer/arranger Daniel J. Hall, director of choral activities at Ohio University since 2012 and previously at West Texas A&M University.

More information on the Singing Men of Ohio is available at www.ohio.edu/smo.

The redesigned Krannert Memorial Library will feature a three-story glass curtain wall on the east, providing natural light and dramatic campus views across Smith Mall. (Rendering by RATIO Architects)

New design, with café, will suit range of learning styles, technology needs

Krannert Memorial Library opened in 1977.

The University of Indianapolis will fundamentally overhaul its Krannert Memorial Library this summer to create a more versatile study and work facility for students and faculty, and a more inviting destination for the campus and surrounding neighborhood.

Based on extensive input from the UIndy community, as well as the latest research on the learning styles of today’s students, the building’s interior will be reconfigured for maximum flexibility, with enhanced digital connectivity and a range of room options to accommodate everything from private study to lively group discussion.

Shaw

“Students really need a place where they can create their own learning environment,” library Director Matthew Shaw said. “We want to offer active learning spaces where faculty and students can collaborate, and students can do everything from discovery to final presentation.”

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From left, business students Austen Hildebrand, Nick Shelly, Lindsey Meyer, Abigail Norman, John Hoskins and Matt Chambers represented UIndy last weekend at the APICS Great Lakes District 2015 Student Case Competition.

A UIndy student team placed fifth among 25 collegiate teams in last weekend’s APICS Great Lakes District 2015 Student Case Competition in Chicago, topping such competitors as the University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin, Ball State University and Purdue’s Krannert School of Management.

APICS is the leading professional association for the supply chain and operations management industry. The competition gave each team 12 hours to develop and present an inventory strategy for a fashion apparel company facing long lead times for product amid uncertain customer demand.

Representing UIndy, and placing first in the presentation part of the competition, were students Austen Hildebrand, Nick Shelly, Lindsey Meyer, Abigail Norman, John Hoskins and Matt Chambers. The team is mentored by Assistant Professor Tom Parker and Associate Professor Chris Harris, who lead the Supply Chain Management program in UIndy’s School of Business.

A series of panel discussions on cancer and related issues will begin March 10 at the University of Indianapolis.

“Living with Hope, Coping with Uncertainty” is the first of three events in the Conversations About Cancer series, sponsored by WFYI Public Media and the Sound Medicine Radio Hour. Moderated by Sound Medicine host Barbara Lewis West, the conversation will explore philosophical and psychological issues, life-extending therapies, caring for caregivers and the role of palliative care. The panelists will include:

• 

  Iseminger

  Karen Iseminger, Ph.D., a cancer survivor and professor in UIndy’s School of Nursing and Center for Aging & Community

• Dale Theobald, Ph.D., M.D., medical director for Community Home Health Hospice and Symptom Management Group
• Larry Cripe, M.D., associate professor of medicine at IU Simon Cancer Center.

Free and open to the public, the program will begin at 6:30 p.m. March 10 in UIndy’s Christel DeHaan Fine Arts Center, 1400 E. Hanna Ave. More information and registration details are available at www.wfyi.org/events.

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Thursday is Pack-the-House Night and Senior Night at Nicoson Hall

Brennan McElroy

A noon pep rally on Thursday will kick off the festivities as the UIndy basketball teams face visiting Saint Joseph’s College for their final regular-season games.

It’s Pack-the House Night, so fans can enjoy the games and dinner for just $5, and it’s Senior Night, with senior players, managers, cheerleaders and student athletic trainers being honored before each game.

Just today, Indianapolis Star sports columnist Gregg Doyel finally caught up with the men’s team, which spent two weeks ranked No. 1 in Division II and still boasts a 21-4 record. Doyel’s piece focuses on senior forward Brennan McElroy, who is growing his hair long for a Locks of Love-type organization in honor of an aunt he lost to cancer. Read the story here.

Alumni can register for Pack-the-House Night here.

Thursday’s schedule of events is: Read more »

Watch video excerpt: Fighting Parkinson’s 

Boxing training helps Parkinson’s patients maintain quality of life

Though participants have reported anecdotal success for years, new research by the University of Indianapolis provides evidence for the first time that people with Parkinson’s disease who participate in boxing training maintain greater physical ability and quality of life than those who participate in other modes of exercise.

Combs-Miller

“We found that people who exercise in a boxing program demonstrate a higher level of function,” said Associate Professor Stephanie Combs-Miller of UIndy’s Krannert School of Physical Therapy, who will discuss this and other research in the sixth annual Provost’s Lecture. Her presentation, “The Quest for New Paradigms in Physical Therapy Practice,” will begin at 4:30 p.m. Thursday in Schwitzer Student Center’s UIndy Hall.

The longitudinal study by Combs-Miller and her students involved 88 central Indiana volunteers with Parkinson’s disease, half of whom participated in Rock Steady Boxing, a regimen that includes lateral foot work, bag punching, stretching, resistance exercises and aerobic training. Founded locally in 2006 by Parkinson’s patient and former Marion County Prosecutor Scott Newman, Rock Steady Boxing has spread to locations across the country and around the globe.

Every six months for a two-year period, the UIndy students conducted standard physical therapy assessments of the study subjects and also surveyed them on quality-of-life issues. Among other results, they found that boxers demonstrated significantly better balance and walking function over time, as well as greater distance on a functional reach test, compared to people who chose other forms of exercise. The survey responses also indicated a higher perceived quality of life among the Rock Steady participants.

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The Kellogg Writers Series on Thursday will present the two winners of this year’s Whirling Prize, which is awarded by students in UIndy’s Department of English.

Conducted by the student-run Etchings Press and now in its second year, the prize includes a $500 cash award for each writer and an opportunity to speak on campus. This year’s contest invited submissions from the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror and supernatural.

Meyerhofer

California-based poet and author Michael Meyerhofer received the Whirling Prize for his fantasy novel Wytchfire, planned to be the first in a series for Red Adept Publishing. His third book of poems, Damnatio Memoriae, won the Brick Road Poetry Book Contest. His previous books are Leaving Iowa and Blue Collar Eulogies. He has published five chapbooks and has won the Marjorie J. Wilson Best Poem Contest, the Laureate Prize for Poetry, the James Wright Poetry Award and the Annie Finch Prize for Poetry. His work also has appeared in Ploughshares, North American Review, Arts & Letters, River Styx, Quick Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and other journals.

Milbrodt

Colorado-based short-fiction writer Teresa Milbrodt claimed her prize for Larissa Takes Flight: Stories, a collection of “flash fiction,” or very brief stories. Other books have included a short-story collection, Bearded Women: Stories, and a novel, The Patron Saint of Unattractive People. Milbrodt has been published in North American Review, Crazyhorse, Indiana Review and Nimrod. She received her MFA in creative writing and her MA in American culture studies from Bowling Green State University.

Meyerhofer and Milbrodt will read and discuss their work at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Schwitzer Student Center Room 010.

More information on the Kellogg Writers Series is here.

Read NUVO review

As the Department of Theatre opens its gender-reversed adaptation of The Odd Couple this weekend, several folks with UIndy ties will continue their work on stage and behind the scenes downtown in the Phoenix Theatre’s production of The Cripple of Inishmaan.

Deb Sargent, Class of 1980

The dark comedy by playwright Martin McDonagh is set on a tiny Irish island where the residents – most notably a disabled boy named Billy – are thrown into a tizzy by the arrival of a Hollywood film crew. The 1996 play recently completed successful revival runs on Broadway and in London’s West End with Daniel Radcliffe in the lead role.

In the local production, 1980 UIndy grad and founding Phoenix member Deb Sargent portrays Billy’s adoptive aunt Kate. Ryan O’Shea, a 2008 grad who teaches part-time in the Department of Theatre, is Helen, Billy’s love interest. O’Shea, director of sales and communication for the Phoenix, also is the production’s dialect coach, assisted by current UIndy Theatre major Cassie Cutshaw. Last but certainly not least, the stage manager is 2007 grad Amanda Gwin.

Performances of The Cripple of Inishmaan are scheduled Thursdays-Sundays through March 1. Tickets and more information are available at (317) 635-7529 or phoenixtheatre.org.

UIndy Theatre grad and adjunct instructor Ryan O’Shea, left, is not only an actress and dialect coach but also director of sales and communication for the Phoenix Theatre. (Photos by Zach Rosing)

Greyhound junior guard Jordan Loyd led scoring with 22 points in Saturday’s 83-64 win over Missouri’s Truman State University. (Photo by Laken Detweiler)

Hound Pound fan bus planned for Saturday games at Bellarmine

With only three games left in the regular season, the UIndy men’s and women’s basketball teams will hit the road this week to face rivals University of Southern Indiana on Thursday and Bellarmine on Saturday.

The men’s team (21-2, 13-2 GLVC) climbed back up to No. 6 this week in the D-II NABC Coaches Poll. Since suffering their first losses of the season Jan. 29 at Wisconsin-Parkside and Jan. 31 at Lewis, the Hounds have won four straight, each by a wide margin.

The women’s team (10-13, 7-8 GLVC) trounced Quincy 95-79 last Thursday but fell 52-63 Saturday at Truman State.

Fans can hop on a Hound Pound bus to Louisville at 3 p.m. Saturday to see the Bellarmine games. Seats can be reserved here, and a refundable $10 deposit must be submitted by 4:30 p.m. Thursday at the Student Affairs office in Schwitzer 209. Game tickets and food will be provided.

The regular season wraps up Feb. 26 as the Greyhounds host Saint Joseph’s in Nicoson Hall.

More info is available at athletics.uindy.edu.