Search the music on his MP3 player, and you'll find "Tales from Topographic Oceans" by Yes, "Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony" by the Cleveland Orchestra, "Fond Memories of Frank Rosolino," and the jazz sounds of the Michigan-based Butterfat Trio.

Now, Ryan Fraley's vast musical collection has merged with his scientific thumb. It was in 2000 that 50 years of research paid off and scientists first mapped the genome sequence, or DNA, of an anonymous human. This snapshot of an individual's building blocks became the inspiration for Fraley's musical dream.

Five years and one Ball State commission later, Fraley completed a majestic musical endeavor. His "Genome: Symphony No. 1" in five movements became a 30-minute, melodic interpretation of samples from the three-billion mapped DNA letters released on the Internet from the human genome project.

Converting amino acids to 12 specific musical pitches, Fraley mined sections of the genome project until he found parts that made aural sense—selective, tonal arrangements with which an audience could connect.

Joe Scagnoli, associate director in the Ball State School of Music, commissioned the piece for the inaugural season of the new Sursa Hall. To supersede expectations, Fraley included the colorful instrumentation of the flute, contrabassoon, contrabass clarinet, flugel horn, harp, English horn, and Tibetan singing bowl.

"I encoded about four times more material than I used and sought influences from drastically different directions," Fraley says.

Borrowing ideas from Tibetan sacred music, 1970s progressive rock, and symphonic music, Fraley garnered an invitation for the premiere of his symphony in April from the Indiana State Museum in conjunction with its traveling genome exhibit. The museum plans to use the music in the background of "Tomorrow's Indiana," a late-summer gallery.

Ball State's Wind Ensemble performed the symphony in Sursa Hall April 24, which conductor Scagnoli says was one of the best performances in the university's history.

"I think the students felt like they were a vital part of something that would be looked at in future years as a significant work," Scagnoli says. "The music was written in a neoromantic fashion, utilizing many new and fresh compositional techniques.  [There are] sensitive moments in the piece that speak to the heart and impact moments that generate great excitement."

Fraley, a 1997 Ball State graduate and former member of the Wind Ensemble, says his Ball State education helped lead him to a successful career in his profession.

"I always found outlets at Ball State for my music and ensembles to perform it," says Fraley, who works for the FJH Music Company.

At FJH for five years, Fraley does music engraving (the pre-press production of printed music), composition, arrangement, and Web site administration. In his spare time, he flies private planes, goes caving, creates chamber music, and undergoes "oddball projects," such as composing big band jazz pieces.

"I spend the other half of the time writing serious symphonic music for wind ensembles," Fraley concludes.

by Leslie Benson

From family dwelling to a center bustling with visitors attending a wide range of  events, the house on Minnetrista, for many years called Nebosham, is 100 years old.

Built as the home for the Edmund Burke and Bertha Crosley Ball family, the home has been teeming with activity throughout its history and has evolved from its original purpose to its current use, a community-minded center that serves all of Muncie and the surrounding area.

The E.B. and Bertha C. Ball Center serves as "a liaison between campus and the community with programs that bring people in from the campus and East Central Indiana communities for lectures, programs, and seminars," Kathryn Kennison, the center's director, says. The center offers noncredit classes ranging from gardening and bird-watching to dream analysis and foreign languages. It also provides a venue for a variety of meetings and events.

Town and Gown Conversations began in the 1970s and continue today. The idea for an interchange between campus and community leaders began during the tenure of Thomas Sargent as center director. Town and Gown events offer people the opportunity to visit with distinguished visitors through informal gatherings. Guests have included Nobel Peace Prize recipients, renowned columnists, researchers, and foreign diplomats.

The Magna Cum Murder Crime Writing Festival, noted as an international event, attracts writers, publishers, and booksellers from throughout the world to participate in seminars and hear best-selling authors of the mystery genre.

Throughout its history, Nebosham, an American Indian term meaning "bend in the river," has been a gathering place. Designed for family living and entertaining, the Ball home was a place where Mrs. Ball would host community events and meetings of the Red Cross, according to Pat Barnett, who joined the center staff in 1977.

The Ball family lived in the home until 1957. The Ball children: Ed, Crosley, Adelia, and Janice, were raised in the home, taking piano lessons at the baby grand piano and using the tunnel beneath the house to visit their cousins. Barnett recently spoke to Janice, now the wife of John Fisher. "She told me how the children enjoyed sliding down the staircase," Barnett says.

The facility was renovated in 1977 to accommodate larger events and re-christened as the Minnetrista Center for Non-Traditional Adult Studies. Barnett recalls the family returning home to review the [renovation]. Among items they missed was their grandmother's staircase chair, powered by electricity. The melodian, however, dating to the mid-1800s and which the children recalled they were not allowed to play, is in the living room.

After the family moved out of the home in the late 1950s, the property sat empty until it was leased to the university in 1963 as the Bertha C. Ball Art Center.

Once the facility was renovated in the 1970s, the first floor remained true to its original elegance. Kennison, who has been with the center for ten years, says, "Some of the furniture on the first floor is indigenous to the home," while the second and third floors have been altered with furnishings to accommodate groups of 70-75.

As the E.B. and Bertha C. Ball Center continues to be a venue for events for the campus and community, it follows the tradition of how the Ball home has been used for ten decades. Beside the long-running activities, new programs are frequently added to continue to draw visitors. "We're going to start a series in the fall based on the PBS special, The Commanding Heights, through which we will match students and people in the community who are practicing what these students hope to eventually do," Kennison says.

As patrons gather at Nebosham, Kennison says she can't help but announce the anniversary to every group she meets. The broad scope of activity gives her ample opportunity. "We have so many events throughout the year that we keep [the century mark] in [patrons'] minds."

by Denise Greer

"When we looked at things yesterday, it didn't look like much was going to happen today and then, all of a sudden, here we are, out in the field, still chasing, and things are looking interesting."

Ball State junior Martin Osterman was in Emporia, Kansas heading toward northern Oklahoma, somewhere south of Wichita, Kansas. He was chasing a storm.

One of a group of 14 students, Osterman was experiencing his second field study with Associate Professor David Arnold to observe weather patterns in the Great Plains.

In the 12th day of a 31-day field excursion that began at the close of spring semester in May and ended June 10, Arnold confirmed that the time had already been productive. The activity has been "pretty good for the past three days," he said. "The first week was pretty active. We saw three tornadoes, one later at night in farm fields in southern Nebraska."

The work of Arnold's storm chase team is well-orchestrated. Each day begins with an early-morning briefing that leads to traveling to a general target area, which Arnold describes as about one-half the size of the state of Indiana. The group stops for updates along the way. "The goal is to get into the target area before the storms develop, so that we can document them from beginning to end," Arnold explains.

Their travels take the team across the Great Plains to observe weather patterns unlike they are able to see in the Midwest. In that vein, Arnold, associate professor of geography at Ball State since 1998, describes the general emphasis of the field study: "The primary objective is to get the students to learn how to forecast severe thunderstorms and tornadoes." It can be considered as "a capstone for students who've had numerous meteorology classes, or as a motivating course, for those who are just starting to get into their sophomore years," Arnold says.

There are no prerequisites for the field study, but this year all participants were junior and senior geography majors, including one who joined the group from Miami University of Ohio.

A number of Ball State's alumni have taken their experiences to the National Weather Service, the Federal Emergency management Agency (FEMA), the state emergency management agency in Indianapolis, and into telecasting. This year is no different, according to members of the team, who confirm that the field study opportunity serves as a catalyst for their future endeavors.

Osterman was a student at the Indiana Academy when he took his first field study trip. "I had a chance to go out and saw a few storms and it opened my eyes to meteorology and what weather is all about," he says. Now, the Ball State meteorology and computer science major is studying toward an opportunity to eventually work for the National Weather Service.

Mishawaka senior David Harker, who plans to pursue a weather broadcast career after he graduates in December, says the field program enhanced his textbook studies and already avid interest in weather. "This trip pushes you to learn that extra amount that you wouldn't learn in the classroom. You can look at the images of the satellites on a home computer, but until you experience the cloud cover you see here in the Great Plains, you never get that full effect," says Harker.

This year's team has gained media notice. Indianapolis NBC affiliate WTHR-TV spent time with the group on location for regional telecasts and the NBC Nightly News aired segments nationally. Arnold is pleased with the attention, but the importance, he says, is what the experience teaches.

"When we come out here and do this, I still learn a lot myself. But seeing the students learn and seeing their excitement and their appreciation for the whole natural environment out here is where I get my greatest sense of satisfaction."

by Charlotte Shepperd

The Old Quad, a gathering of 15,000 including 2,500 graduates, and a weather-perfect day complemented the time-honored ceremony for Ball State's spring commencement, May 7. President Jo Ann Gora, presiding over her first spring commencement at Ball State, was joined on the platform by dignitaries including honorary degree recipients David Gergen, editor-at large of U.S. News and World Report, and David Owsley, son of Lucy Ball Owsley and grandson of Frank C. Ball.

In his keynote address, Gergen urged graduates to find a personal "North Star" to guide them through life. "The world is full of philosophies, religions, and historical wisdom from which we can derive guiding principles to find our way in a complex world," he said. "Now you set a new course through waters never seen before by anyone. You become explorers."

An honorary Doctor of Laws Degree was bestowed upon Gergen, who has been an active participant in American national life for 30 years. His numerous positions include commentator, editor, teacher, public servant, and best-selling author. He also served as an advisor to four U.S. Presidents: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. In addition to his position at U.S. News, Gergen is a professor of public service at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the director of its Center for Public Leadership.

Owsley, a dedicated public servant and humanitarian, was granted an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree. The more than 2,500 diverse works he and his family have given or loaned to Ball State's Museum of Art represent Owsley's eclectic interests and wide expertise.

"I hope that the works of art that I have given to your Museum of Art will not only be of interest and inspiration in themselves, but will serve also as signposts to avenues of exploration of the great and often beautiful cultures of our world," Owsley said.

After degrees were conferred, Gora presented remarks, encouraging the new graduates to have passion. "Having passion allows you to overcome the inevitable obstacles—some large, some small—that we all face." She continued with a quote by Elbert Hubbard, editor, printer, and writer: "The biggest mistake you can make in life is to be constantly afraid of making one."

She contrasted learning experiences prior to college with those during college years. "The years of kindergarten through high school are about receiving an education, particularly the foundational skills necessary to become a productive member of society," Gora said. "A college degree, however, is about achieving an education, and you have chosen your academic and co-curricular experiences at Ball State based upon the anticipation of what you might be after graduation. Those experiences have prepared you well for your next steps in life."

The day culminated with individual college ceremonies, after Gora welcomed the class of 2005 into Ball State's alumni ranks and encouraged them to return to Ball State for a visit, to serve on a committee, to further their education or perhaps start a career.

by Mary Ann Seeman