441 200-PLUS TENNESSEE YOUTH WILL CONVERGE ON MTSU

Summer Program Now 5 Weeks Long & Participants Earn 6 College Credits

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 22, 2006
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Lisa L. Rollins, 615-898-2919


(MURFREESBORO)—The annual Tennessee Governor's School for the Arts (TGSFA), a summer residence program offering intensive study in art, dance, theater and music to gifted and talented high-schoolers, will get under way June 11-July 15 at MTSU.
Beginning with the 2006 school, TGSFA participants at MTSU will now complete a five-week residence, which is a week longer than prior programs, reports Dale McGilliard, professor of speech and theatre and director for this year’s Governor’s School for the Arts.
“The governor has mandated that we have a five-week school from now on,” McGilliard explains. “The other Governor’s Schools in the state did this last year, but we were allowed our last year of four weeks.”
Additionally, students attending the residence program will now receive six hours of college credit instead of three hours of college credit, which is a change from last year’s TGSFA.
“We are diligently working to provide that without disrupting the 21 years of knowing what works for a school of the arts and the process of education they need as artists,” McGilliard notes.
Administered by the State Department of Education, the Governor's School for the Arts at MTSU traditionally receives applicants from more than 1,500 young men and women each year, but only about 230 are accepted into the program each summer.
Regarding last year’s arts school, “We had a fantastic school in 2005, with more than 200 talented students who had a wonderful, life-changing experience at MTSU,” McGilliard observes. “Everything from registration into classes, to buses to dorms, to the smallest detail was excellent, thanks to all the school’s teachers who worked so hard to make things happen for these young artists of Tennessee.”
Three days of finale events will take place July 13-15, including a theater performance, visual-art exhibit, opera scenes, concerts by the school's piano and wind ensembles, chorale, and orchestra, dance performance, visual-art video presentation, and an awards ceremony.
TICKET INFO: Final productions are open to the public. Tickets to attend the July 13-14 performances are $20 each and allow ticket holders to attend for both evening presentations. The Finale Events schedule is as follows:

• Thursday, July 13 – Finale Reception, a fund-raising event, at 5:30 p.m. in MTSU’s Todd Building. Tickets to the reception are $100 per person and all proceeds benefit the TGSFA.


• Thursday, July 13 – Opera and theater performances at 7 p.m. in MTSU’s Tucker Theatre.

• Friday, July 14 –Music and dance performances at 7 p.m. in Tucker Theatre.


GSFTA will conduct its closing ceremonies at 9 a.m. Saturday, July 15, in Tucker Theatre. Students are required to stay through this ceremony. McGilliard notes.
Tennessee Governor's Schools were created when the 1984 Extraordinary Session of the Tennessee General Assembly mandated a summer program to meet the needs of the state's top secondary school students.
In 1985, the first three schools opened: school for the arts at MTSU, school for the humanities at UT-Martin, and school for the sciences at UT-Knoxville.
Since then, other schools have been added: international studies at the University of Memphis, Tennessee heritage at East Tennessee State University, prospective teachers at UT-Chattanooga, and manufacturing at UT-Knoxville.
For more information regarding this year’s TGSFA activities, please visit the school’s online site at www.mtsu.edu/~gschool.


ATTENTION, MEDIA: For editorial needs, including interview requests with McGilliard or to secure a jpeg of the TGSFA logo for editorial use, please contact Lisa L. Rollins in the Office of News and Public Affairs at lrollins@mtsu.edu or by calling 615-898-2919.