Drury University campus.

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Rhodes Stadium nears completion.

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• Drury Carries Commencement Live on the Internet
• Elon College Becomes Elon University
• Susquehanna Establishes Adams Center for Law and Society
• Sage Creates "FastLANE" Program for Undeclared Majors
• Drake Receives $400,000 to Bridge Digital Divide
• Three Redlands Faculty Members Are 2001-02 Fulbright Recipients
• Hamline Students Research University-Community Relationships
• ANAC Presidents in the News
• New Appointments at Rollins College and University of Redlands
• "Spanish for Professors" at Rollins College
• PLU Tragedies Strengthen University Community
  

Drury Carries Commencement Live on the Internet

As a postscript to the 2001 commencement season - Drury University "web-cast" its two commencement ceremonies on May 13. The idea grew out of a 30% increase in traffic on Drury's web-site after the University did live web-casts of recent speeches on campus by Morris Dees and Sister Helen Prejean. The web-cast set-up resembled a television production with multiple cameras fed through a control room. The video signal was sent through two Internet-linked servers and into a campus closed-circuit TV channel. Family members, friends, alumni and others who were unable to be on campus for commencement tuned in by going to http://www.drury.edu/2001 and clicking the appropriate link.

Elon College Becomes Elon University

Elon College made it official on June 1, 2001. Not only did the College become Elon University, but the village of Elon College became simply Elon. That's right. Town and gown shared the same name for over a century. Elon has ambitious plans in implementing its university status during 2001-2002. First off, Elon has named two founding deans, one for its new College of Arts and Sciences (Steven House, associate dean at Seton Hall) and the other for the new School of Communications (Paul Parsons, late of Kansas State University where he was head of the Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications).

Impressive speakers will visit campus during the coming year: David McCullough, author of the current top-rated biography of John Adams; Lech Walesa, 1983 Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president of Poland; Ehud Barak, former prime minister of Israel; and Jane Goodall of East Africa chimpanzee research fame. Finally, Elon is initiating a cohort master's program in education that can be completed in three summers and announces the opening of Rhodes Stadium, a $13 million, 8,250 seat stadium-fulfilling a 50-year dream for an on-campus football facility.

Nancy Midgette, associate provost, describes Elon's department chair orientation program during Summer Institute sharing of best practices.

Susquehanna Establishes Adams Center for Law and Society

Generous gifts have enabled Susquehanna University to establish The Arlin M. Adams Center for Law and Society. The Center is named for a distinguished 3rd U.S. Appeals Circuit Court jurist and will act as a catalyst in focusing on societal issues and their legal implications. Faculty from political science, communications, accounting, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology will be involved in developing Center programs to begin this fall. Programs will include a lecture series, research projects in social and criminal justice, student internships and field experiences, and cooperative relationships with laws schools, medical centers, businesses, courts, and social service agencies.

Sage Creates "FastLANE" Program for Undeclared Majors

In addition to introducing the Albany area's first program in forensics science, set to begin in Fall 2001, Russell Sage College is initiating an experimental program for undeclared students called FastLANE (Liberal Arts in the New Econony). Designed for undeclared students who will eventually choose a liberal arts major, FastLANE combines career counseling, faculty mentoring, and external workplace activities. First-year students enroll in a seminar and the program maintains contact with them over their four years through experiences that culminate in an internship linked to Sage's Corporate Connections senior scholarship program. In preparation for their participation in the program a group of liberal arts faculty are participating this summer in internships with regional corporations arranged through the Albany-Colonie Chamber of Commerce.

Drake Receives $400,000 to Bridge Digital Divide

Drake University environmental science and policy professor, Stuart W. Shulman, has received a $400,000 National Science Foundation grant to promote information technology literacy and to identify methods for narrowing the digital divide-the literacy gap between those with Internet access and the increasingly under-privileged who lack Internet access. The project will begin this fall with a course, "Digital Citizenship," to explore educational innovations that will help to identify, understand, and remove barriers to digital literacy in a comprehensive and systemic manner. The course includes a lab to make students fluent in information technology and to prepare them for a service learning project in teaching under-served Iowa citizens to use computers and to communicate digitally. The grant also supports a research project to measure the impact of the project on students and citizens they have served and will include control groups from similar geographic areas.

Members of the Drake team await dinner at the Summer Institute. From left, Janet McMahill, Raylene Rospond, Delaney Kirk, and Ron Troyer.

Three Redlands Faculty Members Are 2001-02 Fulbright Recipients

In a remarkable single-year achievement for a small institution, three University of Redlands faculty members have been named Fulbright recipients for 2001-02. Historian Greg Barton will lecture on environmental history at the University of Dhakka in Bangladesh and conduct research on Hinduism and Islamic law and philosophy as part of a study of religion and environmental ethics. Business professor James Pick will teach at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and conduct research using geographic information systems to analyze trends in urban population growth, education, poverty, and environment. Communicative Disorders professor Laura Polich will spend two summers in Nicaragua for research on the impact of hearing loss in less-developed countries and teaching audiology at the University of Nicaragua.

Hamline Students Research University-Community Relationships

In yet another example of the scholarship of community engagement at ANAC member institutions, Hamline University anthropologist Guy Michael Trombley and ten student researchers conducted a comprehensive study of relationships between the University and the adjacent Midway neighborhood. Started in fall 2000, the Hamline-Midway Neighborhood Study is designed to produce information helpful in enabling University and neighborhood to reach fuller understanding of needs, perceptions, and aspirations of the other. The Study is intended to facilitate the achievement of University and neighborhood goals. The research consists of qualitative research and data collection, including questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, and review of existing studies and archival documents. Initial results were presented at the University and a neighborhood church in May.

ANAC Presidents in the News

L. Jay Lemons will be inaugurated as the 14th president of Susquehanna University on September 23, 2001. Previously president of the University of Virginia at Wise, Jay Lemons took over the reins at Susquehanna in January. A recent write-up in MapQuest's online visitor's guide to Hartford and New Haven compares University of Hartford president Walt Harrison to Trinity University president Evan S. Dobelle, who gained national attention for his commitment of Trinity resources to rebuild the Hartford inner-city. Harrison is praised for his "sweat-and-shirtsleeves approach to academic involvement in the revitalization of Hartford's neighborhoods and businesses. Given his public-relations background, he does a better job of drawing attention to the growth of Hartford's economy than the municipal or state politicians have."

New Appointments at Rollins College and University of Redlands

James Malek, provost for the past three years at Ithaca College, will become provost at Rollins College in August. Malek is also the new chair of ANAC's institutional representatives, taking over July 1 for Betty Ivey, provost emerita of University of Hartford who had served as chair since 1999.

University of Redlands announces the appointment of Patricia Meyers as dean of the new School of Business (from a similar position at Northern Arizona University). Along with the new School of Education, the Redlands School of Business was created from the former Whitehead College, known widely as one of the earliest innovative colleges offering degree programs tailored to the needs of working adults. Redlands has also appointed Jack L. Osborn, a former senior executive with TRW and president of Mitsubishi Consumer Electronics America Inc. of Georgia, to the Richard C. Hunsaker Chair in Management. A Redlands' alum, Osborn also earned degrees in law at the University of Edinburgh and Cambridge University.

"Spanish for Professors" at Rollins Collegey

Twenty-three Rollins College faculty and staff culminated a 2000-2001 year of lunch-time Spanish language study with a "capstone" program in Madrid where they experienced student life abroad at the University of Oviedo. In addition to testing their ability to function using the Spanish they had learned, faculty were paired with Oviedo faculty counterparts in their field to compare teaching and research experiences and to create relationships for future collaborations. The program received rave reviews from participants who not only developed new language skills, but found it valuable to be placed in the role of students and to interact with faculty from another country.

PLU Tragedies Strengthen University Community

Pacific Lutheran University has endured unsettling events and painful tragedies during 2001 that most campuses might not experience even once in a decade. First, a bright and talented student majoring in music was killed February 25, when a crowded balcony under which she was standing at a private home collapsed, crushing her beneath it. Then, just two days later on February 28, the traumatizing Puget Sound earthquake struck, causing significant damage in Seattle and to a less extent in Tacoma. Miraculously, the University was spared serious damage, although the campus and its inhabitants were quite literally shaken. Finally, a third event occurred on May 17, the day before the end of classes. A gunman who had no affiliation with the University but was angry with a female employee who had had a restraining order issued against him, murdered a music faculty member in a random shooting and then killed himself.

In their shock and grief members of the University community have reached out to each other to find comfort. President Loren Anderson expressed it this way, "…as we grieve and as we begin to rebuild, let us commit to care for one another, to care more, and to care better….let us remember that Pacific Lutheran University is a place that honors both reason and faith. What a gift! Because when we face the non-reasonable and the unexplainable, when the mysteries of life and death exceed our grasp, we need not despair."

Members of the PLU team at the Summer Institute retain their sense of humor in the wake of campus tragedies, (l to r) Greg Youtz, Susan Traverso (actually from North Central), Ed Inch, and Barbara Temple-Thurston.