Congratulations to Ellen Cox, Kathy Egner, and Kim Jenkins, three Transylvania University professors who were recently presented with Transy’s highest teaching honor, the Bingham Award for Excellence in Education. The following article appeared in the Lexington Herald-Leader. For more on the honorees, see the full press release on the Transy website.

Transylvania honors three professors (Kentucky.com)
Bingham Award marks teaching Excellence

By Art Jester
ajester@herald-leader.com

Transylvania University has given three professors its highest teaching honor, the Bingham Award for Excellence in Teaching.

The award provides a salary supplement for five years and can be renewed for up to 20 years based on continued superior teaching.

The winners are:

• Ellen Cox, philosophy.

• Kathy Egner, education.

• Kim Jenkins, mathematics.

They were chosen by a committee of distinguished professors from some of the nation’s foremost liberals arts colleges and universities.

“We place a high priority on teaching excellence at Transylvania, and that fact is underscored by our Bingham Awards for Excellence in Teaching,” Transylvania President Charles L. Shearer said in a statement. “The Bingham program has been extremely successful in rewarding and retaining our best professors and in recruiting exceptional teachers from across the country.”

The recognized professors all use engaging techniques in the classrooms. Cox, who specializes in 20th-century continental philosophy and women’s and gender studies, uses the Socratic method to help dramatize the elusiveness of some answers.

“So much of what students want and expect to learn involves finality, one answer, a conversation closed,” she said in a statement. “I strive for them to recognize the difficulty and sometimes impossibility of resolving many of the important questions we address in philosophy and women’s studies, without allowing them to become frustrated or disheartened by this lack of resolutions.”

Egner, who came to Transylvania from Berlin in 2000, said she establishes a “learning community” in each class, “and I am one of the learners.”

“When we are engaged in discussion, which is my primary way of teaching, I try to draw out the best in each one of them,” Egner said.

Jenkins said her goal in mathematics teaching is to have students think critically.

“My goal is to teach students to ask and answer the question, ‘Why?’ in all my classes, from ‘Foundations of the Liberal Arts’ to ‘Design Theory,’” she said.

The awards were endowed by Mary and Barry Bingham Sr. of Louisville, who gave $3 million to the university in 1987. Their gift was enhanced by $2 million the school received from other sources.

The Binghams were owners of The Courier-Journal and Louisville Times newspapers, WHAS radio and WHAS-TV, and Standard Gravure printing.

When they sold their companies in 1986 they received about $115 million, which they used for philanthropy.

This weekend, with the help of the Bingham program money, Transylvania is hosting a faculty seminar — “Twenty-first Century Liberal Education: A Contested Concept.”

The seminar attracted 17 professors from leading liberal arts institutions nationwide.

Reach Art Jester at (859) 231-3489 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3489.

Steve and Pamela English, Asbury College alumni and founders of The World Our Parish orphanage and school in Guatemala, were recently profiled in the Louisville Courier-Journal. The Englishes were recently recognized with Asbury’s Distinguished Young Alum Award for their humanitarian efforts in Guatemala.

Mission takes in Guatemalan children (Courier-Journal.com)
Local residents travel to help out

By Patti Smith
Special to The Courier-Journal

A local mission team from Southern Indiana is expected to leave tomorrow for Guatemala, where members will spend 11 days volunteering at The World Our Parish orphanage and school.

It will be the sixth trip to the facility for Elizabeth Harley of Salem, a member of Mount Hebron Christian Church in Scottsburg.

She said she and her late husband, Louie Harley, helped lay block for the foundation of the main school building in Sumpango and worked in other areas of Guatemala over the years. One mission trip lasted eight months, she said.

“They’re very much a part of our lives,” Harley said of the couple who founded the school, Steve and Pamela English, as well as the Guatemalan people.

“It’s kind of like a second home,” she said. “You hate to leave, and you leave with tears in your eyes.”

The Englishes graduated about 15 years ago from Asbury College in Wilmore, Ky., he with a degree in sociology and she with a degree in elementary education. But they soon turned to mission work.

Starting in Guatemala City, they worked with people living on a dump site. Later they moved to Sumpango, about 40 miles away, where in 1998 they founded The World Our Parish.

More than 20 orphans live there and 55 others come to attend the school, said Pamela English’s parents, Cecil and Joyce Knight of New Albany. The Englishes recently were recognized with Asbury’s Distinguished Young Alum Award for their dedication to the Guatemalan people.

“To me, it’s just amazing to see the transformation in these kids’ lives,” Amy Kinnell, who works at Asbury’s alumni relations office, said of the youngsters taken in by the Englishes. “They are basically the throwaways of the community. Nobody wanted them, and Pam and Steve took them in.”

She said the award is given to Asbury graduates who are doing amazing things throughout the world.

Kinnell has traveled to Sumpango about every year since 2001. The youngest child living there is 4 and the oldest is 15, and all of them have been rescued from abusive homes, she said.

“Some of them … have been physically healed,” Kinnell said. “These kids are old enough to where they are reaching out to kids in their own communities.”

Kinnell said the Englishes started the school as a way to teach the children in the orphanage as well as their own three children.

Six buildings, including three residences and three educational facilities, sit on the four-acre campus in Sumpango. The basement of the main education building has classrooms and a library. As money comes in, more building projects will be undertaken, Kinnell said.

Many of the members of the mission team worship at Wesley United Methodist Church in New Albany. It will be the first trip for Kenny and Ruth Ann Bandy of Jeffersonville, who sponsor a child at The World Our Parish.

The two have done mission work rebuilding structures in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. They said that helped prepare them for this trip, which will include helping to build a four-classroom addition.

Carol Shrewsbury of Greenville will be making her second trip to The World Our Parish, which she said is viewed as a marvel in Guatemala.

“My mouth dropped when we pulled up,” she said.

Congratulations to Brad Cowgill, state budget director under Governor Fletcher’s administration, for his recent appointment as Interim Council on Postsecondary Education President. CPE recently decided to suspend the search for a permanent leader until after the conclusion of the 2008 General Assembly.

Official CPE Announcement
Lexington Herald-Leader coverage: CPE picks interim president

Cowgill will begin at CPE September 1. Outgoing President Tom Layzell will retire on Sept. 30.

Georgetown College’s summer robotics camp for middle school students was recently spotlighted in a column by Herald-Leader columnist Merlene Davis. The camp is coordinated by education professor Andrea Peach and taught by area teachers pursuing graduate degrees at Georgetown.

Campers build, program creations to save the world (Kentucky.com)

By Merlene Davis
HERALD-LEADER COLUMNIST

I was filled with awe and envy as I watched middle-school-age boys during a summer camp at Georgetown College push a button and send their robots off to save the world.

Well, sort of.

They were programming their robots to simulate what our military and our police have machines doing all the time.

Andrea Peach, camp director and an associate professor of education with a focus on instructional technology at Georgetown, said the campers learn how robots aid humans in bomb disposal, manufacturing, surgery and even household chores. Then they have their machines compete on the last day of camp for top honors.

“We try to arrange the camp around a theme,” Peach said. “This year it is ‘The Amazing Robot Race,’ because I love The Amazing Race.” The scenario was that the campers’ homes had been invaded and the security robots had to keep them safe.

As I walked down the basement hallway of Anderson Hall last week, I thought I must have gotten lost. For a camp of 18 teens and pre-teens, the area was amazingly quiet.

As I peered in the door of one room, however, I saw about a dozen boys working hard on little Lego forms that had a palm-size gadget attached that I later learned was the computer-brain of the toy, which looked rather like a miniature tank or SUV.

For the beginning robotics campers, teams of two boys each would take their creations to a computer, download a program and rush to another room to see how well it worked.

Cristian Nunez and Alex Trevigne, who both are entering freshmen at Scott County High School, agreed that the program used to teach the robot is pretty simple.

“Being kids nowadays,” Cristian said, “we know how to use computers and stuff like that.”

“Getting the robot to turn is a challenge,” Alex said.

The robots were to enter a taped area on the floor in which a box sat, supposedly filled with explosives. The machines were then to push the box gently out of the area and then back away quickly to a safe zone.

If the teams’ robots didn’t complete the assignment, the whole process was repeated until they succeeded.

“They are using math skills, and they don’t even know it,” Peach said.

Once that task was completed, there were two others of equal difficulty.

In the advanced camp, teams, many of whom had attended the beginning camps in previous years, were using what Peach called nanotechnology to build high-performance products from scratch.

Their tasks were to have robots move magnets, avoid soiling cloth and complete about six other projects, which by week’s end should be done in 2 1/2 minutes.

Plus, campers have to share their knowledge as a way of having science serve society as a whole.

The advanced tasks are similar to those of the First Lego League, an international competition that draws fans with the zeal equivalent to that of college basketball’s Final Four, Peach said.

Chase Harpole, 13, of Scott County and Max Venables, 12, of Bates Middle School in Danville, said that they weren’t quite ready to compete internationally but that they had sharpened their computer skills at the camp.

“This is fun,” Max said. “Building robots is fun and this camp is a good experience.”

Peach started the camp four years ago because her son had enjoyed his time at a similar summer camp at Eastern Kentucky University, but she hadn’t liked the drive.

The 5-day camp costs $100 and runs from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The instructors are schoolteachers who learn the coursework at the graduate level a week before the camp and then teach the campers.

Peach said she has former students teaching three similar camps.

“My goal is to get all kinds of children involved,” Peach said. “We would like to get this type program in Fayette County and Scott County schools,” she said.

Shelby, Campbell and Warren counties have all established robotics programs in their schools. Peach hopes to get a program established at Linlee Elementary School next year.

Such programs have succeeded with children who have special needs, too, Peach said. Children with attention deficit disorder can concentrate on making and programming robots when they can focus on little else.

The Lego kits can be specially ordered and cost $250 each.

Although the campers when I visited were all boys and the teachers all women, Peach said that is not always the case. A class she taught at Lexington Christian Academy included several girls.

Adonis Johnson, 14, an entering freshman at Bryan Station High School and a member of Black Males Working at First Baptist Bracktown, said he attends the robotics camp in the mornings and a basketball camp on campus during the afternoon. He said he liked doing both.

“I’m learning to program robots that will help in safety issues and with medical problems,” he said.

I am so sorry my boys didn’t have something like this when they were younger. It may not be too late for your child, however.

Let’s help Peach get this going in our public schools.

Reach Merlene Davis at (859) 231-3218 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3218, or mdavis1@herald-leader.com.

AIKCU members are encouraged to participate in the August 13 Campus Safety Forum at EKU, presented by the KY Department of Criminal Justice Training. From the official announcement:

In response to Governor Fletcher’s Kentucky campus safety initiatives and the formation of the Governor’s Steering Committee on Campus Safety, the Department of Criminal Justice Training (DOCJT) will be conducting a one-day Campus Safety Forum. The primary goal of this forum is to provide accurate and practical information about training, prevention, preparation and protection in Kentucky’s campus communities.

You are invited to attend the Campus Safety Forum at DOCJT on August 13. This Forum is designed to provide educators, university police, local and state law enforcement officials and first responders with current information that will assist them in planning for the future, understanding trends, best practices, mutual aid and training opportunities.

Who should attend: University police, university security officers, educators, first responders, facility security staff, student affairs administrators, legal staff and local and state law enforcement officers in college communities

What: Campus Safety Forum

When: Monday, August 13, 2007; 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Where: Department of Criminal Justice Training
Funderburk Building
Eastern Kentucky University
521 Lancaster Avenue
Richmond, KY 40475

RSVP: Shannon Sanders (859.622.2967) or Shannon.sanders@ky.gov
Registration and agenda will follow

AIKCU’s Institutional Researchers and data administrators will meet in Frankfort on Wednesday, August 8, from 9:30 AM to 3:00 PM.

AIKCU Institutional Research/Data Coordinators Meeting
American Pharmacy Services Corporation Building
Frankfort, KY
August 8, 2007

AGENDA

9:30
Coffee and conversation

10:00
Welcome/Introductions/AIKCU Update
- Gary Cox, AIKCU President
- Mason Dyer, AIKCU Director of Communications and Research

10:30
CPE Update
- Charles McGrew, Director of Information & Research, CPE (and staff)
- Comprehensive database reporting changes
- KPEDS update
- Affordability Study update
- High School Feedback Report
- Transfer Feedback Report
- Other CPE projects

11:45
Break for working lunch (Continue CPE discussion)

12:30
NAICU University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN) Consumer Information Project (Teleconference)
- Frank Balz, Vice President for Research and Policy Analysis, NAICU
- Natasha Janson, Asst. Dir. of Research and Policy Analysis, NAICU

1:30
AIKCU roundtable discussion

- National surveys - Who is doing what? Emerging trends or future plans?
- KCTCS data sharing initiative
- CPE Project Graduate
- Dealing with multiple requests/priorities and limited staff resources.
- Using the common data set.
- SACS
- Methods for tracking and communicating key institutional indicators (software, reports, etc)
- Engagement and “Outcomes” surveys - NSSE, etc
- Other topics?

3:00
Adjourn

AIKCU strives to build business partnerships that help campuses leverage the collective power of the association to realize savings and increase efficiencies, in turn helping them keep costs as low as possible for students. AIKCU is pleased to formally announce Intrasource as its newest business partner. Intrasource is a Lexington company that has partnered with AIKCU to offer professional information technology services and solutions to AIKCU institutions.

As both a hardware vendor and service provider, IntraSource has the expertise and capability to provide AIKCU campuses a total IT solution. Their services include solution planning, design & analysis, procurement support, solution implementation, ongoing support, and if requested, managed services. Intrasource brings expertise in areas that are essential to the daily operations of AIKCU campuses such as storage management, network services, security, and disaster/recovery. Many AIKCU campuses have limited IT staff resources; this partnership offers an alternative to assist in bringing technology solutions to their campuses. Intrasource may serve to augment current campus staff in providing a solution and/or provide a solution where campuses may not have the staff or the expertise available.

Intrasource is offering AIKCU and its members a very positive financial arrangement through the AIKCU partnership. This includes but is not limited to managed services, security management, network infrastructure, IP telephony, storage management, disaster recovery/business continuity, and education solutions.

IntraSource was introduced to campus information technology professionals at the recent AIKCU IT Symposium held June 14. The partnership offers discounted rates to AIKCU members on many of Intrasource’s solutions. For specific program information, campuses should contact Intrasource Business Development Manager Tami Lai at 888-552-5543 or Steve Dooley at AIKCU.

Three Transylvania professors selected to participate in public health and liberal education workshop in Washington, DC

LEXINGTON, Ky.—A faculty team from Transylvania University has been selected through a national competition to participate in the Public Health and Liberal Education Faculty Development Workshop in Washington, D.C. on July 9 and 10. The workshop is the first joint education project of the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) and the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research (APTR).

Transylvania’s faculty team is composed of Kathleen Jagger, professor of biology and associate dean of the college; Jack Furlong, professor of philosophy; and Barbara Lomonaco, associate professor of anthropology. The workshop participants will tailor the experience to their own needs and interests by focusing on one of three breakout sessions—Public Health 101, Epidemiology 101 and Global Health 101. Each content area will provide curricular frameworks and syllabi illustrating the types of materials that can be used as well as successful teaching techniques. The workshop will offer hands-on participatory exercises designed to provide practice using and critiquing a range of approaches to teaching and curriculum design.

APTR in collaboration with AAC&U is leading the development of undergraduate public health education. The Faculty Development Workshop is the outgrowth of the APTR-sponsored Consensus Conference on Undergraduate Public Health Education that recommended all colleges and universities offer introductory courses in public health. The workshop is made possible through the generous support of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. AAC&U is the leading national association concerned with the quality, vitality, and public standing of undergraduate liberal education. AAC&U works to reinforce the commitment to liberal education at both the national and the local level and to help more than 1,100 member colleges and universities keep the quality of student learning at the core of their work as they evolve to meet new economic and social challenges.

BC Receives Grant to Study Energy Needs
Author(s): Jay Buckner , Julie Sowell, Berea College Public Relations

Berea College’s Center for Excellence in Learning Through Service (CELTS) has received a Learn and Serve America innovation grant for “Energy and Empowerment in an Appalachian County,” an initiative to study energy needs and assets in Madison County.

The integrated three-year community-based research project will bring together multiple community partner organizations and multiple academic departments with their specific expertise. This collaborative and coalition-based approach will produce data toward the goals of improving financial security of low-income families in Madison County; benefiting the environment by reducing demand for coal-based electricity; and empowering community members to become actively involved in transforming the policies, infrastructure, assumptions and behaviors that drive energy use in Kentucky today.

“Our community’s history and current situation call for a community-based approach to identify and develop strategies to help residents of our community save money and energy in the years ahead. A collaborative approach to researching energy needs and assets will bring together the resources of Berea College, the skills of community leaders who have been working to address energy issues and to empower local citizens for many years, and the grassroots knowledge of community members,” says Meta Mendel-Reyes, Director of CELTS.

Of nearly 100 proposals, Berea College’s project was one of just 10 selected for its innovation and potential contributions to the field of community-based research (CBR), which engages faculty, students, and community stakeholders in research projects that aim to affect social change.

Founded in 2000, CELTS coordinates service and service-learning opportunities at Berea College. The mission of CELTS is to educate students for leadership in service and social justice through promotion and coordination of service-learning, community service, and outreach. In keeping with Berea College’s strong history of service, faculty have been connecting their teaching with community service and outreach throughout the College’s history. Through collaborative service-learning and community-based research partnerships, college students and faculty have worked with community partner organizations to conduct research, gather data, produce educational materials, and implement projects.

In being awarded the innovation grant, Berea College joins the National CBR Networking Initiative, a larger network of community-based research practitioners funded by Learn & Serve America and spearheaded by Princeton University and the Bonner Foundation. This Initiative is coordinated by Princeton University’s Community-Based Learning Initiative and will generate a range of best-practice tools and resources, including websites, manuals, and data valuable to students, faculty, and the community. As one of 30 other institutions expanding its CBR efforts through the Learn & Serve America grant, Berea College has the opportunity to grow and strengthen CELTS through funding, as well share its work with other CBR practitioners nationwide.

Learn & Serve America, a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service, provides support to schools, community groups, and higher education institutions to facilitate service-learning projects.

“Service-learning helps America pursue some of its most critical goals, from improving academic achievement to helping youth from disadvantaged circumstances succeed in school and in life,” said David Eisner, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which administers Learn and Serve America.