Fraternity to honor ’54 North Texas graduate

Jervis Underwood will be awarded the Phi Mu Alpha fraternity’s Robert J. Rogers Lifetime Service Award during the 2009 National Convention Gala on July 18. He is a 1954 graduate of what is now the University of North Texas. The fraternity has given this prestigious award just five times since 1990.

Conductors head to UNT to improve skills

More than 40 conductors from around the world will improve their techniques and lead performances at the North Texas Conductors Collegium Concerts at UNT.

The concerts are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. today, Saturday, Tuesday and June 26 in Winspear Performance Hall at UNT’s Murchison Performing Arts Center, located along the north side of Interstate 35E at North Texas Boulevard. Admission is $5 for the general public, free for UNT faculty, staff and students with ID. To purchase tickets, call 940-369-7802 or visit www.thempac.com .

Play therapy center receives grant

The Center for Play Therapy at UNT will receive a grant from the Association for Play Therapy for a research proposal, titled “Comparison of a Non-Directive and Directive Humanistic Play Therapy Intervention: Effect on Disruptive Behaviors of Early Elementary School-Aged Children,” supporting evidence-based play therapy practices, according to the association’s executive director, Bill Burns.

The $20,000 grant will support the examination of the effects of child-centered play therapy, a non-directive intervention, and affective-behavioral-cognitive play therapy, a directive intervention, on the disruptive behaviors of early elementary school-aged children.

The principal investigator of the $20,000 award will be Sue Bratton, a counseling professor and director of the UNT Center for Play Therapy. The center, established in 1982 by Garry Landreth, is the largest play therapy training and research center in the world and has generated the largest body of university play therapy research.

Co-investigators are professors Dee Ray and Natalya Edwards.