College holds annual Honors Day dinner

calendar icon11 Apr 2013    

The University of Nebraska–Lincoln's Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts will honor alumni, faculty, staff and student achievement at its annual Honors Day Dinner on Saturday, April 20 at 5 p.m. in the Lied Commons. The event is by invitation only.

The awards to be presented include seven recipients selected by our Fine and Performing Arts Alumni Board: the three Alumni Achievement Awards, the Award of Merit, the Faculty Service Award, and two Student Leadership awards.

The complete 2013 Honors Day dinner program is available for viewing.

Alumni Achievement Awards

Michael Strand - Art

The Alumni Achievement Award in Art will be presented to Michael Strand (M.F.A. 1999). Strand will present a free public lecture on Friday, April 19 at 2:30 p.m. in Richards Hall Rm. 14. He is an Associate Professor and Head of Visual Arts at North Dakota State University. Projects and exhibitions this past year include the Tallinna Rakenduskunsti Triennaal in Tallinn, Estonia, featuring the second of 10 iterations of his initiative, “The Misfit Cup Liberation Project”, launched at The Plains Art Museum in Fargo, N.D. This project continues at the 2013 NCECA Ceramic Biennial in Houston, Texas, and The "Bowls Around Town Project" at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Ore., for the exhibition “Object Focus: The Bowl.” This project examines the ritual of the contemporary dinner and will be harvesting images, recipes and ruminations that will be made available to the public beyond the exhibition.

Strand’s work has been published internationally, with articles in Ceramics Technical, Studio Potter, Hemslojen, The Chronicle of Higher Education and Public Art Review. His recent Artstimulus projects were cited in the Yale University Press publication “40 Under 40: Craft Futures” by Smithsonian curator Nicholas Bell.

Robert C. Snider - Music

The Alumni Achievement Award in Music will be presented to Robert C. Snider (B.M.E. 1976). A native of Lincoln, Snider completed his bachelor's degree in 1976 at the University of Nebraska (Lincoln) and his master's degree in 1978 from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has performed as a percussion soloist/clinician for the American Bandmasters Association, the Mid West Band and Orchestra Clinic, the Western International Band Clinic, the American Band College, and on three Percussive Arts Society International Conventions. Snider recently retired from the United States Navy Band in Washington, D.C., after 30 years of service. While there, he served as National Tour Director, Support Staff Chief in Charge, percussionist and later timpanist with the Concert Band and drummer for the Country Current, country/bluegrass band.

Snider was the assistant director of bands and percussion instructor at the University of Wisconsin (Green Bay) prior to being selected for Navy Band-Washington in 1981. Snider is a busy freelance percussionist in the Washington, D.C. area, first call substitute teacher for music in his local school system, church pianist and Artist in Residence-music, for the Twin Beach Players local theater group and maintains a home percussion/piano studio in Owings, Md.

Tim Croshaw - Theatre and Film

The Alumni Achievement Award in Theatre and Film will be presented to Tim Croshaw (B.F.A. 2000). Croshaw is a senior set designer in Los Angeles. After graduating from UNL, he received his Master of Fine Arts in scene design and lighting design from Florida State University. Within a year, he was working as a set designer at NBC/Universal, first on their television series “Medium,” and then “Monk,” as well as “House, M.D.” His other TV series include “Entourage,” “Dexter” and “Deal or No Deal,” among others.

His credits in film are equally impressive. He has been a set designer for “Twilight” (the first of the series), “Inception,” “X-Men: First Class,” “The Avengers” and “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” He is also the set designer for the soon-to-be-released “Star Trek: Into Darkness.”

Additional Awards

Award of Merit - Ann Blomquist Poll

The Award of Merit will be presented in honor of Ann Blomquist Poll. Poll was born and raised in Nebraska and graduated from the University of Nebraska with a Bachelor of Music Education and Master of Music for voice. She moved to New York City and focused on a career in the field of financial services’ computer systems. She contributed to the design and implementation of computer systems for the American and New York Stock Exchanges and NASDAQ. In banking, she created and implemented banking computer systems for the Retail Banking Division and the Private Wealth Management Division at Banker’s Trust. She continued her music studies and performed regularly in solo recital and with choral music. She also served on the Hixson-Lied Advisory Board. At the time of her untimely death in 2006, she was Assistant Vice President at Deutsche Bank, where she played a key role in maintaining their international back office computer operations. Her husband, Dr. George Poll, recently created two generous endowed funds in Ann’s name at the University of Nebraska Foundation to support the School of Music, including the Ann Blomquist Poll Legacy Fund.

Faculty Service Award - Ian Borden

Ian Borden is the recipient of the Faculty Service Award. Borden is Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts in the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film. An actor, director, scholar and Certified Teacher of Stage Combat with the Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD), Borden came to UNL in 2008. He has directed “The Good Doctor,” “Bloody Poetry,” “Twelfth Night,” “The Three Musketeers” and “Agravio.” He is also the founder of the Lincoln Assassination Stage Combat Workshop. Held at UNL, but open to anyone, participants train with Fight Masters and Fight Directors in weapons and unarmed fighting for stage and screen and go through the processes of Skills Proficiency Testing and Skills Proficiency Renewals in front of David Boushey, the founder of SAFD. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Lincoln Arts Council and a member of the Angels Theatre Company’s Advisory Committee. He has also starred in Nebraska Repertory Theatre productions and at the Black Hills Playhouse.

Student Leadership Awards

Two Student Leadership Awards will be presented: Lindsay Clausen, who received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio art from the Department of Art and Art History in December 2012; and Emily Martinez, who will receive her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film this May.

Other awards to be announced

Other awards to be presented include the Vreeland Awards in Music and Art; the Porter Awards in Theatre and Dance; the Pace Woods Scholarships in Art, Music and Theatre; the Dean's Award for Academic Excellence; and the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award. In addition, the prestigious Hixson-Lied Faculty and Staff Awards will also be announced.