Dr. Jared Barnes, associate professor of horticulture, began teaching at SFA in 2014. His teaching and research interests include connecting people with plants; fruit and vegetable production nursery management; plant breeding; southern perennials; and the ecology, cultivation and design of naturalistic plantings.

“I am so honored to receive this teaching award,” Barnes said. “I love cultivating minds by sharing the wonders of the plant world, and having my passion recognized is very touching for me.”

Barnes is the recipient of this year's Teaching Excellence Award for the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture.

This is one in a series of 2021 Teaching Excellence Award features.

CBS News producer Rodney Hawkins is digging deep into his family's past with the help of the Lone Star Slavery Project at SFA. Hawkins recently reached out to the university’s East Texas Research Center and spoke with Linda Reynolds, ETRC director, and Kyle Ainsworth, ETRC special collections librarian and Lone Star Slavery Project manager, for assistance.

View the news broadcast here.

The perception of luxury was the focus of Li’s fifth publication, a cross-cultural study of purchasing habits among U.S., Chinese and Chinese-American consumers of high-end fashion goods.

One of the roles in her latest research was as thought leader on the cross-cultural aspect of the findings. Chinese and Chinese-American buyers don’t seem to care if cheap counterfeits have more than a 50% market share. If they like Gucci, they’ll continue to buy Gucci. But in the United States, if Anglo consumers feel the market is dominated by fakes, they’ll buy fewer goods by brands such as Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Hermès.

The Axe Handle, SFA's one-stop shop for students' and parents' needs, had a successful April.

On average, the Axe Handle answered more than 250 calls per day. In its three-month existence, Jack the chatbot has answered almost 9,000 questions.

To see a full report, click here.

SFA departments, programs and organizations are invited to advertise in The Pine Log's upcoming 2021 Welcome Edition.

This special print issue of the student newspaper will be mailed to the home of every incoming first-year and transfer student in early August. This is an excellent opportunity to share important information with this specific group of students and their families.

To see on-campus ad rates, click here, or email pinelogads@sfasu.edu for more information.

Parking passes for the 2021-22 academic year are now available through mySFA under the "Employee" tab.

Passes will be available for pick-up later this summer. For more information about parking passes, click here.

This year, 37 faculty members are completing 30, 20 or 10 years of employment at SFA, and 39 faculty members have announced their retirement from the university.

Both groups, along with those who reached employment milestones or announced their retirement in 2020, will be honored at a ceremony to be held during the coming academic year.

Click here to view a list of honorees.

To correct any errors or omissions, contact Dr. Bob Szafran, professor of sociology, at (936) 468-2009 or rszafran@sfasu.edu.

Artist Svetlana Petrova is making famous works of art "purrfect" one cat at a time. We think the addition of Zarathustra, her chunky ginger cat with attitude, to famous paintings is a brush stroke of genius!

To see more of Petrova's fat cat art, click here.