Hello! from Dean Linda Kean

Welcome back for the 2025-2026 academic year at ECU with our College of Fine Arts and Communication! 

Our newsletter is back with a new look, and even more great news and information from CFAC and our schools. You can expect to hear from us quarterly here, and don't miss signing up for our monthly events calendar email, Sights & Sounds. In tandem, these pieces aim to keep you informed of the many activities, events, and accomplishments that we want to celebrate and share with you.

You will see in this edition of "imprint" that our CFAC community enjoyed an enriching and productive summer, and we look forward to the exciting experiences to come this Fall 2025 semester.

Please connect with us; the ways to do so are listed below. We look to engaging with you this year.

See a full listing of upcoming events on our events calendar, and by visiting our school websites, linked below.

We celebrate all CFAC students who participated in internships over the summer! We recognize four from our SOC students who shared their stories!

🌟 Sophomore Rebekah Bishop worked as a gameday intern for the Winston-Salem Dash minor league baseball team. One of her roles was greeting fans as Petey Poblano (in orange).

🌟 Sophomore Jake Howard worked with Umstead Pines at Willowhaven in Durham. He handled daily operations behind the counter, and coordinated with outside staff.

🌟 Senior Candon Johnson worked as a reporter and photographer with the Bladen Journal, the local newspaper near his hometown in Bladen County.

🌟 Junior John Meese worked as a door-to-door representative for Green Pest Management in New Castle, Del., with a personal goal of selling at least one contract per day.

The ninth issue of the SOC's Countenance magazine is out! Inside are stories by our students, including great profiles, and a story about the hardships of finding housing as a college student.

The magazine is a collaboration between Dr. Cindy Elmore’s Feature Writing students and Barbara Bullington’s Creative Design in Publishing Course. Read this issue of Countenance online.

Welcome to freshman Makakoa McGee, joining us in the School of Music as a music education major. He is one of this year's new Brinkley-Lane Scholars, the most prestigious undergraduate award program offered at ECU.

Makakoa plays French horn, and hopes to be a studio professor.

Read more about Makakoa!

We're proud to share the success of the ECU Chamber Singers! The group won third prize for mixed-voice choirs at the top level of international excellence at the choir festival and competition in Marktoberdorf, Germany June 6-10.

The group competed, performed concerts, and connected with choirs from across the globe. They and director James Franklin should be so proud of their accomplishments.

Read more about the trip in this ECU News story. You can also see clips — and full videos — from Germany. Check out a clip from the award ceremony, one from their first round of competition, and one from the final concert. Congratulations to all!

Big congratulations headed to Paul Edwards, one of our SOAD MFA candidates in Textiles!! He is one of 48 textile artists chosen from 400+ applicants to appear in the Peters Valley School of Craft Exhibition in Print: "Timeless Textiles." This is Paul's third publication outside of ECU, as he prepares for his thesis exhibition in Spring 2026. (Paul's thesis committee chair Robin Haller also appears in it!)

Paul's piece is called "Left Hands" and is 58 by 92 inches. Paul creates data-informed textile sculptures, and for this piece, he considered statistical data around when right-handedness was no longer mandated and an increased number of students identified as being left handed. He compared the data trend to an increase of student identifying as having diverse gender identities.

Several faculty members reported works published in recent months. They include:

Raychl Smith from the School of Music. 🎶 1) Journal of Popular Music Education: "Developing a Community of Practice in Popular Music Education: The Goals and Vision of the North Carolina Music Educators Association Popular Music Committee."
And 2) a chapter on Blues Songwriting with Ukulele in the upcoming Modern Band Handbook, edited by Bryan Powell.

Borim Song from the School of Art and Design. 🎨 Co-authored with Ahran Koo of California State University, Fresno. "Exploring Privacy, Data Painting, and Hidden Biases: Lessons From Contemporary Artists for AI Use in Art Education" appears in Issue 2 this year of the journal Art Education.

Andrea VanDeusen from the School of Music 🎶 and Cynthia Wagoner (SOM professor emeritus). Journal of Research in Music Education. Their research study, "Navigating Gender Bias in Academia: Experiences of Women Music Teacher Educators," followed eight participants at various career stages and explored the way they described their experiences in academia, and how different factors impacted those descriptions.

Several faculty members reported recent recognition for their research:

Drew Ashby-King from the School of Communication. His research, funded by the Arthur W. Page Center at Penn State University, was featured as part of their 2025 Insights Report. The project, in collaboration with peers at Michigan State University and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, looked at how public relations practitioners in several other countries understand global prosocial communication and practice for their multinational organizations. 

Lisa Bodollo from the School of Theatre and Dance. Bodollo returns to ECU to teach theatre education courses after four years in New York City. She recently collaborated with Columbia University's Center for Voice and Swallowing on a research study focused on specialized vocal training for puppeteers. The project bridges voice science with performance art. Her research team will present the findings at The Fall Voice Conference in Charlotte, Sept. 25-27.

Adrienne Steiner-Brett from the School of Music and Bhibha Das from the Department of Kinesiology continue their "Listen, Breathe, Move" informal caregiver research study from the Parkinson's Foundation's community programs initiative, and an ECU Research, Economic Development and Engagement Sponsored Activities and Research Catalyst award.

A variety of our faculty enjoyed wonderful and enriching conference experiences over the summer. Here are some of those reported back to us:

Navid Bargrizan from the School of Music. He presented a research poster, "Concrète Soundscapes as Orchestration, Orchestration as Pseudo-Context in Roger Waters' 'Amused to Death'" at the Timbre and Orchestration in Popular Song (TOPS) conference at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, June 5-7. Bargrizan also presented his research paper, "'Wässriges System' Evocative of Dichotomous Roughness-Pureness in Manfred Stahnkes' Musical 'Woodcuts'" at the international symposium Mikrotöne: Small is Beautiful VI at Mozarteum University in Salzburg, Austria, July 2-6. He also chaired a panel during the symposium, and his new composition for violin, cello, and piano, "UT-tuning-O N-exercise-A LI-no. TY-9" premiered by the Galan Trio.

Jessica Doyle-Mekkes from the School of Theatre and Dance. In August, she was the keynote speaker at the Greenville-Pitt County Chamber of Commerce inaugural "LeadHERship" Women's Conference. She spoke about finding your voice and using it fearlessly. 

Cindy Elmore from the School of Communication. She presented "How a North Carolina County is Fixing Rural Voting Deserts" at the August virtual roundtable for Radically Rural, a nonprofit organization that brings together rural leaders from across the United States to share ideas and initiatives related to rural justice, journalism, economic development, the arts, and more.

Lisa Beth Robinson from the School of Art and Design. Robinson attended the Paper Book Intensive in Oxbow, Mich., where she learned to make bone folders, among other activities; she attended the College Book Art Association Conference in Madison, Wisc.; she presented at the Ladies of Letterpress Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah and stayed for an artist's book residency collaboration with Marnie Powers-Torrey at the Book Arts Program in Marriott Library at the University of Utah.

Rachel Son from the School of Communication. She became a Kopenhaver Center Fellow after being selected from an applicant pool to participate in the Women Faculty Moving Forward Workshop that took place during the 2025 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication's annual conference in San Francisco.

Many of our faculty members work not only as educators, but also fine arts professionals and performers. Congratulations to these and all our faculty professionals who share their talents with the ECU community and beyond.

From the SOTD, Trent Blanton acted in a reading of the new, Broadway-bound musical PERIPHERAL (by Mark Aaron James and Sarah Elizabeth Grace, and directed by Sean Daniels) during a workshop at the Roundabout Theatre Co. in New York City.

From the SOM, Emanuel Gruber recorded the Bach Cello Suites 1-3 at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Bath. He also collaborated with Bridge Records on new recordings of Beethoven music for cello and piano, with an expected release this fall. As of July 1, Gruber is the Hardy Distinguished Professor in String Pedagogy.

From the SOM, Christine Gustafson coached chamber groups; gave masterclasses, lessons, and a presentation; and performed with ECU, University of Taipei, and DMajor Music Studio students in Taiwan. She also performed and taught as flute faculty for the Global Summer Institute of Music in Austria; ECU clarinet student Richard Schuster also attended as a performing participant.

From the SOTD, Rebecca Simon returned for the summer to The Forestburgh Playhouse in Forestburgh, N.Y., working as the season's dialect coach and working on multiple productions, including "Boeing Boeing."

From the SOM, Kwan Yi performed at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts in Davis, Calif. as part of the Mondavi Center Presents series and Curtis on Tour; and at Holley Hall in Sarasota, Fla. and Neidorff-Karpati Hall in New York City, premiering works by Sean Friar and Marc Migó. Yi expects a fall release of his first solo album.

SOAD alum Heath Wagoner '11 and his silver work were featured in The New York Times Style Magazine, alongside several retailers to whom he sells his work. He also appears in the Wallpaper* USA 400, the guide celebrating people in the U.S. who are shaping the creative landscape.

SOTD alum Lisa Cordileone '04 premiered her short film, "Crazy as a Loon" at the OUTSOUTH Queer Film Festival in downtown Durham in August. The short is a proof of concept for the TV series "Committed." Cordileone and her producing partner, Shaan Dasani, also joined a festival panel discussion about filmmaking in North Carolina.

SOTD alum Marisha Wallace ’07 returned to Broadway in the role of Sally Bowles in the revival of “Cabaret” at the Kit Kat Club, headlining the show with Billy Porter. The production’s run started in July and was set to close in October; the last show was Sept. 21 after Porter had to withdraw from the production due to illness.

When you click play on a digital song or drop the needle on a turntable, you expect to hear the same version of a song every time. ECU percussionist Quintin Mallette was attracted to a new project happening in the School of Music this academic year thanks to the freedom of improvisation and the potential for new, contemporary music to inspire unique connections to an audience.

Read more about this great musical project.

ECU photo by Steven Mantilla.

Instructor Tansy Obryant is a ceramicist in her last year of the MFA degree program at East Carolina University. She led the workshop for the students, for Angela Wells, a professor who leads the graduate programs in the School of Art and Design, and for Dr. Sheena Eagan, an assistant professor in the Department of Bioethics and Interdisciplinary Studies at the Brody School of Medicine.

Read more about this fun and meaningful collaboration between art and medicine.

ECU photo by Bobby Ampezzan.

Music graduate student Matthew Mantini is one student on campus who has learned about the benefits of ECU's interlibrary loan program, which has helped him obtain expensive musical scores at no cost.

The ECU libraries have so many resources available, and interlibrary loan is just one that can help students find success. Read more about the program.

ECU photo by Steven Mantilla.

We are excited to welcome Kitt Lavoie to CFAC! As of July 1, he is the new director of our School of Theatre and Dance. 

Kitt comes to us from Southeast Missouri State University, in the Jeanine Larson Dobbins Conservatory of Theatre and Dance within the Holland College of Arts and Media. He is a playwright, director, instructor, and has worked in film and TV, among other talents.

Read more about Kitt, his background, and his goals at SOTD in this ECU News story.

It was a team effort to present a fun and funny production of William Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" in mid-June. School of Theatre and Dance students, alumni, and staff all participated in a modern take of this show.

You might have missed the incredible dance number, but you can still read about the show to hear from the cast and director, and watch a clip from one scene.

Hundreds of middle and high school students had the opportunity to learn, create, and perform this summer with the great summer camp opportunities in the Schools of Art and Design, Music, and Theatre and Dance. Read more about the great time they had, and check out some fun videos from band camp, art and design camp, drama camp, jazz camp, and musical theatre camp.

ECU photo by Rhett Butler.

The East Carolina Piano Festival offers incredible opportunities for students, as well as our local community and beyond! With an 11-year-old participant this year, the festival is expanding in age range, in the world-class pianists it brings to campus for recitals, an in reputation across North Carolina and beyond. Read more about the impacts and benefits of this great festival.

ECU photo by Rhett Butler.

Contact the College of Fine Arts and Communication, and please follow and engage with us on social media!

We have created some short forms so you can share your news, stories, and feedback with us. Please get in touch! We look forward to hearing from you.