Convocations

President of Southern Utah University, Steven D. Bennion is the 14th chief executive to guide a school with a long and distinguished history that has included five different names. President Bennion is a grandson of the founder of the University, Milton R. Bennion, and joined SUU in 1997 after successful terms of service as president of both Snow College and Rick College. Dr. Bennion received his undergraduate training at the University of Utah and holds an M.P.A. degree from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. Noted for his genuine interest in students, President Bennion has taken time to periodically teach a political science course at SUU in addition to his many administrative duties.

Professor Dina Titus, a native of Georgia, was educated at William and Mary, University of Georgia and received her Ph.D. from Florida State University. She currently teaches Political Science at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and, in addition to these responsibilities, she is also a Nevada State Senator from District 7 in Clark County. She is on the Board of Directors of the Nevada Test Site Foundation and is a member of the Nevada-California Super Speed Ground Transportation Commission, Clark country Women’s Democratic Club, Education Commission of the States and the Nevada Commission on Participatory Democracy. Se was named the Spanos Outstanding Teacher at UNLV in 1985, was the Chairman of the Nevada Humanities Committee from 1984-19865 and in 1999 was the Nevada Arts Advocate of the Year.

Her most recent publication is Bombs in the Backyard: Atomic Testing and American Politics. The title of Dr. Titus’ Convocation lecture, “The Mushroom Cloud as an American Symbol,” attests to the extensive knowledge she has concerning America’s nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site and the impact it has had on that region.

Dr. Victor Zuniga is Dean of the School of Education and Humanities at the University of Monterrey in Mexico. He holds his Ph.D. in sociology of education and culture from L’Universite de Paris VIII-Vencennes, France and specializes in the study of international migration of Mexican citizens from Mexico to the United States. He has published more than sixty articles, chapters and books on this topic in Mexico, the United States, and France. He is co-chair of “The Georgia Project”, a partnership between school districts in northwest Georgia and the University of Monterrey to place education graduates from Mexico in schools in Georgia with large populations of Hispanic students. He is also a member of Sistema Nacional de Investigadores of Mexico and is a visiting professor at the University of Versailles in France.

Since 2000, Reggie Murphy has worked as Marketing Research Manager for USA TODAY, where he managed a team of research analysts and provided USA TODAY’s management and sales team market analysis to support the editorial staff, sales, marketing, and circulation strategies for the USA TODAY brand. He managed all phases of qualitative and quantitative audience research and consumer insight analysis and interpretation. At USA TODAY, Murphy conducted benchmark research studies related to reader involvement, customer loyalty, and advertising effectiveness. He managed research projects for major companies – including General Motors, FedEx, Intel, IBM, and ESPN. In 2002, he was awarded the highest USA TODAY team honor – the 2002 Luminary Award for his work on the research and launch of the Market Trends Page in USA TODAY’s Money Section.

In September 2004, Murphy moved into a new role with USA TODAY’s parent company, Gannett, as Director of Research Services for the Newspaper Division. He now manages research projects geared towards increasing readership, advertising, circulation, and marketing of Gannett’s 101 daily newspapers and web sites.

Despite a full-time job, Murphy teaches courses in research and media management at The George Washington University. He’s also taught and lectured at Howard University, Georgetown University, and Louisiana State University.

Peter Jensen is a twenty-nine year old male who was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome when he was 11 years old after manifesting many signs of that condition as child. After he was diagnosed, he was told that his was the most severe case known at that time in the Salt Lake City Area. He manifests all of the most common forms of tics known in Tourette’s Syndrome and some of the rarer ones as well: Coprolalia, motor and and various vocal tics.

He is currently doing research on Tourette’s Syndrome including investigations into its causes and effects, medications and other therapies used to treat the disease.

Peter is a Sophomore at SUU. His goal is to educate people concerning Tourette’s syndrome and help the general public move beyond Hollywood’s depiction of this condition.

Saundra Buys, MD, is the co-director of the Family Cancer Assessment Clinic at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, as well as the Medical Director of the High Risk Breast Cancer Clinic. She also is a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Utah’s School of Medicine. She has been caring for patients with all types of cancer since 1982, however, she specializes in treating breast cancer. Buys is the principal investigator on two large studies funded by the national Cancer Institute. The first is to determine the effectiveness of screening for various types of cancer. The second studies the genetic causes of breast cancer.

Buys received her MD from Tufts University in Boston and completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at the University of Utah.

Buys is a native of Cedar city where she spent the first 12 years of her life. She is a granddaughter of D. L. Sargent, longtime and beloved professor emeritus of biology at SUU. Her other grandfather, J. Howard Maughn, served as the President of SUU from 1922-1929.

Buys and her husband, Joseph, reside with their two children in Salt Lake City.

John Pielmeier began his career as an actor, working at Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Guthrie Theater, Milwaukee Repertoire, Alaska Repertoire, Baltimore’s Center Stage, and the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights’ Conference. It was at the O’Neill that his play Agnes of God was first staged. A Co-winner of the 1979 Great American Play Contest, Agnes premiered professionally in March 1980 at Actors Theatre of Louisville which was followed by a seventeen month run on Broadway. Some of his other plays include Voices in the Dark, winner of the 1999 Edgar Award for Best Play; Haunted Lives, a collection of one-acts published by Dramatists Play Service; and Courage, a one-man show about J.M. Barrie that ran off-Broadway and was filmed for Television.

Among the television movies he has written are Choices of the Heart, for which he received a Christopher Award, the Humanitas Award, a Writers Guild of America nomination for Best Teleplay, and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from St. Edward’s University in Austin Texas; and Sins of the Father, which broke viewer records when it was first aired on FX.

A proud member of the Dramatists Guild, the Writers Guild of America East, and an alumnus of New Dramatists, Mr. Pielmeier is married to poet/playwright/book artist Irene O’Garden and resides in Garrison, New York.

Led by Ms. Jung-Hee Kim Lovejoy who has been honored by numerous outstanding recognitions including Utah Governor's Cultural Heritage award, this dance group established in 1990 is regarded as one of the best ethnic performance groups in the State of Utah. Colorful costumes, graceful movements, and harmonious music of this dance group surely provide audiences with new experiences of beauty and wonder from Korea, the Land of Morning Calm. For the November Convocation, this dance group comprised of seven to ten performers will present fan dance, drum dance, scarf dance, and other eye-catching, energetic, and entertaining numbers.

Dr. Michael B. Zemel received his graduate training in Nutritional Science and Physiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He served as assistant, and then associate, professor in the Department of Medicine at Wayne State University from 1980 until assuming his present position in 1990. He was also Research Endocrinologist at the VA Medical Center, affiliated with the Wayne State University School of Medicine from 1987 to 1990.

Dr. Zemel is author of over 135 refereed publications primarily describing investigations of the role of cell calcium regulation in obesity, insulin resistance and hypertension. His current work focuses on obesity genetics, the regulation of human adipocyte lipogenesis and lipolysis via calcium-linked mechanisms, and novel modulation of obesity by dietary calcium and dairy products.

"Purpose, program, people, perspective. True leaders balance all these elements to get the job done, build their organization, and uplift their followers. As commander of the STS-90 Neurolab Space Shuttle mission, Colonel Rick Searfoss had the opportunity to exercise leadership not only in the dynamic and difficult environment of space, but during a multi-year process of building the crew and support teams in preparing the most complex science research space flight ever. Through his exciting "Mach 25 Leadership" multimedia presentation, Rick will share leadership experiences from this unique environment while showing that the same universal principles apply equally as well to any endeavor here on planet Earth."

Professor Roberds was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He received his BA from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, MA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Ph.D from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. His areas of teaching are Elections and Voting; Constitutional Law; Ethics and Politics; Research methodology. His research and publications tend to focus on the effects of scandals on elections and political careers. Specifically, he has gathered, coded, and analyze data on all US House and Senate elections from 1974-2002. This ongoing research is an attempt to determine if scandals hurt candidates, and if so, in what ways and under what conditions. He has also published and is now doing research on issues surrounding the internet, pornography, and obscenity law.