Each Friday (almost) on AIKCU.org we feature a new graphic that highlights an important aspect of independent higher education in Kentucky.

The College Board released its annual Trends in College Pricing report this week. You can read about it on the College Board’s site or in any of the multiple news outlets that covered the annual report - including the New York Times, Inside Higher Ed, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and many others.

Tuition continued to rise this year across the country and in all postsecondary sectors, despite the dire economy. In the independent sector, average tuition and fees across the nation rose 4.4% over 2008-09. In Kentucky, the average tuition and fees at AIKCU institutions increased by 4.83%. (These increases are less than in previous years, where increases typically averaged around 6%. It is also important to note that few students pay this published “sticker price” after factoring in financial aid.)

As this Graph of the Week shows, Kentucky’s average published tuitions and fees remain low in comparison to other private colleges in the South and in the nation. As they have been historically, AIKCU average tuitions remain significantly lower than the Southern and national averages.

Download Average Published Tuition and Fees at Four-Year, Nonprofit Private Colleges, 2009-10 (PDF)

The Collaborative Initiative to Improve Educational Success in Appalachian Kentucky seeks a Project Director for a part-time, grant-funded position. View the complete position description at http://www.aikcu.org/about/jobs/

By Rachel Crenshaw, CU student news writer

CAMPBELLSVILLE, KY — Room 123 of the newly completed School of Education building was packed from wall to wall as Campbellsville University held a ceremony dedicating the new building Sept. 23.

In an opening prayer at the dedication, Dr. Robert VanEst, associate professor of education, thanked God for allowing “the new facility vision to become a reality.”

Dr. Brenda Priddy, associate professor and dean of the School of Education, said,  ”Exactly, 13 months ago, we gathered under a white tent to break ground for the new School of Education building, and here we are, dedicating this beautiful 14,000-square foot facility that consists of 21 offices, a conference room and six classrooms.”

Priddy said at the center of the new building is the “Beulah Campbell Collection Room.” Campbell, who has received national recognition for her interest in children’s literature, has donated many children’s books and children’s illustrations to CU’s School of Education including the entire original illustrations from the children’s book “The Knee Baby” by Mary Jarrell and illustrations by Symeon Shimin.

Campbell, who graduated from Campbellsville College in 1936 and received an honorary doctorate from CU in 2005, has conducted children’s literature conferences, workshops and festivals all over the world.

Priddy said the room demonstrates Campbell’s impressive collection of original art work and illustrations. She said the room would help others to “learn more about Campbell’s life’s work dedicated to preparing teachers and bringing to life for her students the world of children’s literature.”

Also recognized at the dedication was James Achterhof, on behalf of the Richard D. Van Lunen Foundation, for the foundation’s significant lead gift to the School of Education.

Achterhof said it was a pleasure to see the results of the donations given to the building. “As Christians we have a responsibility to teach children,” Achterhof said, “and teachers have the power to influence thousands and thousands of students.”

Ashley Greer, a senior in secondary education of Eubank, Ky., spoke on behalf of the students at the School of Education at the dedication. She said, “The education students now have a place to call our own, and we take pride in this establishment.

“As we dedicate this new building I can’t help but see the great expansion that has now taken place at CU with over 300 students in the education program,” Greer said. “But even though the numbers may increase and the building may change one thing remains — CU empowers outstanding educators.”

Benji Kelly, vice president for development, also recognized many other individuals who played a vital role in the construction of the brand new education building including the mayor of Campbellsville, Brenda Allen, and the county clerk, Mark Carney.

Paul Osborne, chair of the CU Board of Trustees buildings and grounds committee, gave special thanks to the building and grounds committee and said the trustees were excited to celebrate the victory of the building but were also ready to continue on with progress.

Dr. Frank Cheatham, vice president for academic affairs and professor of math and computer science, said the School of Education was a “shining star” at CU with its stellar academic program.

Dr. Michael V. Carter, president of CU, concluded the ceremony just before the ribbon cutting. He said the completion of the new facility was a team effort compiled of those who believe in the future of CU including over 60 donors.

He said the School of Education has incredible faculty and staff and one of the best deans of teacher education.

In the closing prayer by Dr. Joel Carwile, pastor of Valley View Church in Louisville, Ky., he said it was an honor to stand in front of the new building where teachers will become empowered to inspire others and raise up a new generation.

The School of Education consists of 20 programs including P-5, elementary education; 5-9, middle grades education; 8-12, English, math, biology, chemistry and social studies; P-12, art, music, health, physical education and special education; P-12, ESL endorsement; early childhood education; interdisciplinary early childhood education; master of arts in education; master of arts in special education; gifted education endorsement; director of special education and Rank 1 program.

The faculty, with nine doctoral degrees, consists of 15 members at the School of Education.  In addition, the program has a student teacher exit program: a partnership with regional administrators and teachers that include evaluations of students’ professional portfolios, mock employment interviews and a mini job fair.

The program also sponsors P-12 school events including: Excellence in Teaching program, Future Educators of America (FEA) Regional Conference, FEA summer camp, a minority recruitment program called “Pathways to Teaching” and the summer Outdoor Classroom Institute.

For the ‘08-’09 academic year, there were 590 students in the School of Education programs.

The School of Education has a $2.8 million grant with Kentucky Alternative Certification in Special Education and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education has accredited it since 2007.

Teacher education was one of the founding programs of the institute when it was established as Russell Creek Academy in 1906.  By 1917, 350 teachers were trained under the new established. Later the education department began offering several bachelor of science programs in elementary and secondary education after Campbellsville College became a four-year institution in 1957.

In 1973, the school achieved becoming the Professional Studies Division and the School of Education in 1998.  In 2009, an Alpha Epsilon Omicron chapter of Kappa Delta Pi, an international honor society in education, was started.

For more information regarding the dedication contact the School of Education at 270-789-5252.

Boyd R. Buser, D.O., the VP and Dean of the Pikeville College School of Osteopathic Medicine since 2007, will serve as interim president of Pikeville College.

PIKEVILLE, Ky. – The Pikeville College Board of Trustees has announced the appointment of Boyd R. Buser, D.O., as interim president of the college.

“The board of trustees is extremely pleased Dr. Buser accepted this position. We have complete confidence he will do a wonderful job. He has our complete support,” said Terry Dotson, chairman of the college’s board of trustees.

Dotson also said the board will proceed in filling the need permanently and will be available to assist the college family in any way.

Buser has served as vice president and dean of the Pikeville College School of Osteopathic Medicine since 2007.

“I appreciate the confidence the board of trustees has demonstrated in appointing me to this interim position,” said Buser. “I will do my best to help move the college forward as we search for our next president.”

A native of Iowa, Buser received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Iowa. After earning his osteopathic medical degree from the Des Moines (Iowa) University College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1981, he went on to complete an osteopathic internship at the former Cranston General Hospital in Cranston, R.I. He is board certified in family practice as well as osteopathic manipulative medicine.

As past-president of the American Academy of Osteopathy, the New England Academy of Osteopathy, the Maine Osteopathic Association (MOA), and former chairman of the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners, Dr. Buser maintains a leadership role within the osteopathic medical profession. A member of the American Osteopathic Association’s (AOA) Board of Trustees since 2004, he serves the AOA in a number of other capacities, including chairman of the Bureau of Emerging States’ Concerns and member of the Bureau of Osteopathic Clinical Education and Research. A fellow of the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians, in 2007 Buser was elected to the Current Procedural Terminology editorial panel by the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association. He is the first D.O. to be elected to the panel. He is a member of the Kentucky Institute of Medicine and the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure.

Buser has been active in the osteopathic profession internationally as well. He has taught extensively around the world over the past 15 years. He represented the American osteopathic profession in a number of World Health Organization (WHO) initiatives, including the WHO Congress on Traditional Medicine, held in Beijing, China, in 2008. He is also an officer of the Board of Directors of the Osteopathic International Alliance.

Since earning his D.O. degree, Buser has received many awards for outstanding achievements within the osteopathic medical community. In 1994, the AOA, along with the American Osteopathic Foundation, named him the osteopathic profession’s Educator of the Year. The Maine Osteopathic Association presented him with the Roswell Bates Award in 1994 and the Distinguished Service Award in 1996 and 2007.

AIKCU recently began listing employment opportunities at member institutions here on our site. We’re posting this external opportunity as a courtesy to our friends at the Christian Appalachian Project.

The Christian Appalachian Project (CAP) has recently retained Hanna Resource Group (HRG) to conduct a search for a Chief Executive Officer based in Lexington, Kentucky.  This is a phenomenal opportunity for the right person. Do you know of anyone who would be interested?  Please visit BluegrassWorks.net to learn more information or to apply.

WILMORE, KY—Asbury College is hosting a day of celebration for the Andrew S. Miller Center for Communication Arts groundbreaking on Saturday, June 27.

Schedule of Events:
10 a.m.        Communication Arts Center Celebration in Hughes Auditorium
11 a.m.        Groundbreaking at the Building Site
7:30 p.m.     Communication Arts Showcase – with special guests Dean ’53 & Lory Jones Reception immediately following in the Student Center
10 p.m.        Best of the Highbridge Film Festival in the Student Center

Today more than 300 students are majoring in journalism, communications, media communication, and theatre and cinema performance. The school also offers minors in leadership, public relations, and theatre and cinema performance. Asbury College is constructing a state-of-the-art to match the caliber of students we are attracting through these rapidly growing programs.

The groundbreaking will also kick off the public phase of the Building Windows of Opportunity Campaign. Former Disney actor Dean Jones ’53 and his wife, Lory, are serving as honorary campaign co-chairs.

The new facility will be named in honor of Asbury College Alumnus, former Board of Trustees member and retired Salvation Army Commissioner, Andrew S. Miller, known as a model communicator and servant to God and man.

Learn more at www.asbury.edu.

See this story on Lindsey Wilson’s new website.

COLUMBIA, Ky. — A group of Lindsey Wilson College students, faculty and staff will participate in the equivalent of the choral Final Four next week in Carnegie Hall.

The eight LWC students, alumna and faculty member will be part of a performance of  Antonio Vivaldi’s “Gloria” on Monday night in New York City’s Carnegie Hall. The performance - which will merge more than 175 vocalists - will be accompanied by the New England Symphonic Ensemble.

“The honor of being selected to perform at Carnegie Hall is to the classical musician what winning the Final Four is to a college basketball team,” said LWC Associate Professor of Music and Religion and Director of Choral Programs Gerald Chafin. “I’m incredibly proud of the hard work and dedication of our choral students to perform at this level of musicianship.”

Chafin will take six Lindsey Wilson students to next Monday night’s concert: Molly Atkinson of Louisville, Ky.; Jenny Burdine Pine Knot, Ky.; Allison Chafin of Columbia; Katelin Frederick of Hustonville, Ky.; Tyler McCubbins of Magnolia, Ky.; and Josh Stephens of Stearns, Ky.

Also performing will be alumna Sara Hargis. Currently an LWC admissions counselor, Hargis was a member of the Lindsey Wilson Singers and she participated in the college’s inaugural Carnegie Hall appearance.

Monday night will be the third time Lindsey Wilson students have performed at Carnegie Hall concert — the other two were in 2002 and ‘06.

“It is a great deal of work to prepare for this concert, but students discover that it is worth the effort,” Chafin. “It’s an experience they will cherish and remember for the rest of their lives.”

Students, who were selected for the program last fall, have spent the last seven months learning Vivaldi’s popular vocal work. When they get to New York City, they will spend three more days of intensive rehearsals.

“In addition to the workouts, we’ll enjoy getting to know the approximately 175 other singers who are participating in the collaborative project,” Chafin said.

Hargis recalled her 2002 performance on the stage of legendary Carnegie Hall, calling it a “surreal moment.”

“Walking onto the stage at Carnegie Hall for the first time was such a surreal moment,” she said.

Atkinson said she has heard a lot about the special feeling singers get when they walk onto the historic Carnegie Hall stage.

“Everybody I have talked to that has gone on this trip says it’s one thing to see a performance on the stage of Carnegie Hall, but it’s a whole different thing when you step out on the stage and look into the crowd,” said Atkinson, who will be a Christian ministries senior in 2009-10. “They say it’s breathtaking to step out and look into the crowd.”

For McCubbins, Monday night’s concert will be the perfect end to his college career. Last month, he received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Lindsey Wilson.

“When I found out about the opportunity, I knew it was a chance of a lifetime to sing on the stage in Carnegie Hall, so I didn’t want to pass it up,” he said.

Monday night’s performance will be especially meaningful to the Chafin family as Chafin’s daughter, Allison, will be among those performing.

“A special honor for me is the opportunity to share the Carnegie stage with my daughter, Allison,” Chafin said. “I’m certain it will be a priceless moment for us.”

Lindsey Wilson already has a connection with Shulamit Hoffmann, the conductor of Monday night’s concert. During the trip’s planning stages last spring, the Lindsey Wilson Singers performed at the Los Altos United Methodist Church, Hoffmann’s home church in San Francisco.

“It was a pleasure for our students to meet her and begin talking about the Carnegie Hall concert,” Chafin said. “We’re looking forward to Monday night.”

Chafin noted that on the previous two trips to New York, the students experienced several surprises that made the experiences even more meaningful. For example, during the 2002 trip, students visited the site of the former World Trade Center less than a year after it had been demolished by terrorists.

Hargis remembered singing “Be Still My Soul” at Ground Zero in 2002 as the last beam from the World Trade Center was removed from the site.

“That was a moment that touched my heart in a way that nothing else had before,” she said.

Readers can follow the Lindsey Wilson Singers’ trip to New York and Monday night concert at Carnegie Hall on Twitter. Beginning on Friday, June 26, Hargis will update the Singers’ Twitter page with pictures, comments and sounds. To follow her on Twitter, go to www.twitter.com/lwcsingers.

“Work and Learning in Higher Education in the 21st Century” Symposium at Berea College
May 31-June 2

Students holding jobs while going to college isn’t anything new or unusual. But Berea College is one of only seven colleges in the United States, collectively called Work Colleges, where all students are required to participate in a comprehensive work-learning-service program as part of the school’s educational program and philosophy.

May 31 - June 2 Berea College will host a Symposium titled “Work and Learning in Higher Education in the 21st Century.” Sponsored by the Work Colleges with support from the Kellogg Foundation, the symposium will give invited teams from other colleges and universities an opportunity to examine work-learning as an educational approach to prepare students for the complex realities of the 21st century. Conference speakers and symposium workshops will challenge participants to rethink student work as having educational outcomes that include lifelong learning, personal development, service and vocation.

Keynote speakers will be David Sawyer and William Coplin, recognized leaders in the fields of work and learning. Sawyer, president of Context, consults widely with corporations and non-profit organizations on strategy, citizen engagement, leadership, sustainability and culture change. For a decade Sawyer directed leadership and service-learning programs at Berea College, receiving the nation’s highest award for voluntary service from the White House and The Servant Leader Award from the National Youth Leadership Council. He designed Save the Children Federation’s Appalachian Teen Leadership Program, traveled to India to meet with the Dalai Lama to help design a Tibetan refugee education program and worked with the Clinton administration to help launch the nation’s AmeriCorps program.

Bill Coplin, Ph.D. has been the Director and Professor of the Public Affairs Program of the Maxwell School and College of Arts and Sciences of Syracuse University since 1976, where he has won most of the teaching and advising awards given by Syracuse. Among the more than 110 books and articles he has published are “10 things Employers Want You to Learn in College” (2003). His latest book is “25 Ways to Make College Pay Off: Advice for Anxious Parents from a Professor Who’s Seen It All.”

Member institutions of the Work Colleges Consortium include: Alice Lloyd College, Pippa Passes, Ky (also an AIKCU member); Berea College, Berea, Ky.; Blackburn College, Carlinville, Ill.; College of the Ozarks, Point Lookout, Mo.; Ecclesia College, Springdale, Ark.; Sterling College, Craftsbury Common, Vt.; and Warren Wilson College, Asheville, N.C. Berea is the oldest work college in the nation and the first interracial and coeducational school in the South.

Institutions presenting at the symposium, in addition to the Work Colleges, include Rhodes College, Berry College, Keuka College and Maryville. Attending the symposium are teams from Wilmington College, Davis and Elkins, Montreat College, Lindenwood University, Quincy University, Washington and Lee University, Morehead State University, Spelman College, Campus Compact and the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education.

For additional information, visit www.workcolleges.org

2009 Kentucky Conference on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Overview

Registration is now open for the 2009 Kentucky Conference on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning co-sponsored by the Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE) and KACTE. The theme of the conference is ‘Creating Prepared Learners.’  This year, the conference has merged with the Teacher Quality Summit to offer college faculty and administrators a forum to examine topics related to K-12, adult, and postsecondary education.

The conference will be held on Wednesday, May 20 and Thursday, May 21 in Lexington at the Marriott Griffin Gate Resort on Newtown Pike. More information about the conference is available on CPE’s website: http://cpe.ky.gov/calendar/statewide/facdev.htm

AIKCU Member Registration

Registration is required of all individuals attending the conference. The cost to each attendee or sponsoring institution is $100 per person which includes snacks, reception, dinner on Wednesday and breakfast on Thursday.

AIKCU has been allotted 35 slots for the conference. Participants are responsible for the $100 conference registrations and their own lodging. Slots are available on a first-come, first-served basis, with the caveat that we’d like to see as many campuses participate as possible. So we’ll reserve the first registrant from each AIKCU campus received by 3/31/09 and institute a wait list for additional registrants. (We will make exceptions as necessary for any campuses sending multiple presenters.) After 3/31 we’ll fill any remaining slots regardless of campus.

Participants may register online here:

http://aikcu.wufoo.com/forms/registration-creating-prepared-learners-conf/

Lodging Information:

If you need to make lodging arrangements at the Marriott Griffin Gate, the hotel registration deadline is April 28 for the conference rate of $91 plus 13% tax.

Online reservations: http://marriott.com/lexky?groupCode=FDCFDCA&app=resvlink

Phone Reservations: If you prefer to make reservations by phone, please call the Lexington Marriott Griffin Gate at 859-231-5100–Use this code: FDCG.

Questions?

If you have questions about the conference itself, please contact Susan Weaver, AIKCU’s representative to the CPE Faculty Development Workgroup and member of the conference planning committee: susan.weaver@ucumberlands.edu.

If you have questions about registration for the AIKCU spots, please contact Mason Dyer at AIKCU: mason@mail.aikcu.org or 502-695-5007.

AIKCU’s five interns - representing Asbury College, Campbellsville University, Lindsey Wilson College, and St. Catharine College - recently finished their final work and class assignments and returned to their home campuses. (See an earlier profile of all five of the interns here.) From mid-January to April these outstanding students spent approximately 30 hours per week working in a state agency and met twice a week for seminar classes. The classes were taught by veteran Courier-Journal reporter Dick Wilson and Dr. Amy Watts of the Kentucky Long Term Policy Research Center, and featured many guest speakers representing all areas of Kentucky government.

We caught up with three of our interns shortly before the semester ended to ask them what they learned from the experience and how they felt it impacted their lives.

This was the 9th year of the AIKCU Frankfort Semester Internship Program. In even years, AIKCU interns work directly with members of the General Assembly. For more information on the intern program, visit http://www.aikcu.org/about/initiatives/frankfortinternships/.