Latest Academics
You’re Invited: Oglethorpe’s Senior Art Show
Posted by: | May 11, 2012 | Comments
OU seniors would like to invite YOU to Oglethorpe University’s Senior Art Show. The four-day exhibition is curated by Professor Alan Loehle and comprised of works by graduating art majors and minors from Oglethorpe University.
Students Nicole Kang, Lauren Visconti, Lara Jacques, Sarah Duff, Kara Samples, Sean Lovett, Michaela Mayfield, Samantha Korotskin, Bianca Hernould, Hannah Goldman, Jessica Sundstrom, Leeane Eldredge, Katie Odell, and Ian Franklin will showcase some of their best works created during their time as undergraduates. A wide range of works in mediums, styles, and subjects will be part of the exhibit.
The show will run May 11 – 14, 2012 in the Talmage Room of the Emerson Student Center. An opening reception will be held on May 11, 2012, 7-9 p.m. Need more information? E-mail Nicole Kang at nkang@oglethorpe.edu.
Ted Turner Among Speakers to Address Graduates at Oglethorpe’s 2012 Commencement
Posted by: | May 10, 2012 | Comments
The academic quadrangle is set up, awaiting commencement.
The Oglethorpe University 2012 Commencement ceremony will be held on Saturday, May 12, 2012 at 9:00 a.m., on the academic quadrangle of the OU campus.
President Larry Schall will preside over the ceremony honoring more than 250 graduating seniors. During the ceremony, Oglethorpe will present three honorary degrees to:
– Zhanna Arshanskaya Dawson, an accomplished pianist, Holocaust survivor, and former faculty at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, who will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters.
– Sue Adcock Frueauff, a foundation and community leader, will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.
– Ted Turner, a renowned leader in business and philanthropy, will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.
Each honorary degree recipient will address the Class of 2012. Past recipients of honorary degrees include President Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Woodrow Wilson, and Amelia Earhart.
Zhanna Arshanskaya Dawson
Zhanna Arshanskaya Dawson is a Ukrainian-American pianist and former faculty member of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University (Bloomington). Dawson came to national prominence in 2009 after her son, journalist Greg Dawson, published the book Hiding in the Spotlight chronicling his mother’s escape from the Holocaust. A young prodigy, Dawson began piano lessons at age five and made her performance debut at age 6 on the radio. She later received scholarships to attend the Moscow State Conservatory. In 1941, she was forced to flee the persecution of Jews in her hometown. She escaped only to find herself forced to survive by playing her music for Nazi soldiers from the army that had killed their parents. Dawson was eventually adopted and brought to the United States, where she studied music at the Juilliard School of Music.
Sue Adcock Frueauff
Sue Adcock Frueauff has served as a trustee at the Charles A. Frueauff Foundation in Little Rock, Ark. for 22 years. From 1996-2001 she also worked as a program officer at the foundation, and since 2001 has served as chief administration officer. Prior to the foundation, Frueauff worked for 16 years as an elementary school principal in Russellville, Arkansas, and 13 years as a classroom teacher in the Arkansas Public Schools. Frueauff has served on numerous boards and in leadership positions at the Arkansas Tech University Foundation, University of the Ozarks, American Association of University Women (Branch and State President), Arkansas Curriculum Development Association, Suspected Child Abuse & Neglect, Centers for Youth & Families, and many more. She is an active volunteer and leader in her community, having given her time and talents to Arkansas Rice Depot, Stewpot, Interfaith Hospitality Network, Single Parent Scholarship Fund, Arkansas Literacy Council, Child Protection Team, and numerous others. Frueauff earned her Master of Science in Education at the University of Central Arkansas and her bachelor’s at Arkansas Technical University.
Ted Turner
Throughout his career, Ted Turner has received recognition for his entrepreneurial acumen, sharp business skills, leadership qualities, and his unprecedented philanthropy. Whether in billboard advertisement, cable television, sports team ownership, sailing, environmental initiatives or philanthropy, Turner’s vision, determination, generosity and forthrightness have consistently given the world reason to take notice. Turner is chairman of the United Nations Foundation, which promotes a more peaceful, prosperous and just world; co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a charitable organization working to reduce the global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; chairman of the Turner Foundation, which supports efforts for improving air and water quality, developing a sustainable energy future to protect the earth’s climate, safeguarding environmental health, maintaining wildlife habitat protection, and developing practices and policies to curb population growth rates; and co-founder of Ted’s Montana Grill restaurant chain, which operates 44 locations nationwide. Turner is also chairman of Turner Enterprises, Inc., which manages his business interests, land holdings and investments, including the oversight of two million acres in 12 states and in Argentina, and more than 55,000 bison.
Oglethorpe Psych Students Excel at Research Conference
Posted by: | May 07, 2012 | Comments
The annual Georgia Undergraduate Research in Psychology Conference was recently hosted by nearby Kennesaw State University. More than 110 students from nearly 20 universities presented either research posters or talks. Many were honor students from their respective universities—which this year included universities from surrounding states as well.
The Oglethorpe Psychology Department was represented by seven students who had their work accepted for the conference: Jahnavi Delmonico, Julia Fukuda, Cassie Hendrix, Allison Moore, Justin Sabree, Brittany Weiner and Janet Wood. They presented a mixture of research posters and talks based on the original data they had collected in their respective studies from the past year. In addition, all of them participated in a juried competition sponsored by the Georgia Psychological Association (GPA) for best research at the conference. Judges consisted of executive members of the GPA and professors of research methodology.
For the fourth year in a row, an Oglethorpe student earned first place! Specifically, Cassie Hendrix submitted a study she completed during her “Theories of Personality” course on the effects of anxiety on people’s ability to correctly interpret the emotions expressed in facial expressions. She presented her research in a 250-seat auditorium, where she led the audience through a Powerpoint presentation of her study, followed by a question and answer session. Cassie and I (as her faculty sponsor) received certificates of recognition and Cassie received a cash award. She joins previous GPA-sponsored conference winners Ilana Olin and Mary Beth Bidgood (2009), Alyx Buonanotte (2010), and Balbir Khalsa and Brittany Weiner (2011).
Participants had the opportunity to attend all the talks and poster sessions, as well as listen to a key
note address and attend a career/graduate school panel discussion. It was an excellent opportunity to meet students and professors from other schools and to learn from fellow excellent researchers.
All of the students gained valuable experience, practiced publicly presenting and defending their work, and had a good time spending the day with each other and the department faculty. Congratulations to all of you!
Editor’s Note: The Oglethorpe University Psychology Department routinely encourages its students to submit original research they have designed and conducted to professional research conferences. Our students typically attend several conferences during their undergraduate education. Submitting one’s work for peer review by experts in the field and then defending that work in a professional setting is wonderful training for graduate school, professional schools (e.g., medical and law) and many careers.
“Outdoor Classroom” Benefits OU Students …and Bluebirds
Posted by: | April 24, 2012 | CommentsOglethorpe seniors Andrew Davenport and Sandy Vuong recently let me tag along to watch their springtime, end-of-semester urban ecology project take off… literally.
The two students were assigned special projects for their Urban Ecology class, taught by Dr. Roarke Donnelly, OU associate professor of biology and director of the Urban Ecology Program. Davenport and Vuong, both biology majors, decided to team up and investigate the behavior of Eastern bluebirds.
OU senior Andrew Davenport "flushing" the bird box
“Bluebirds prefer to find pre-existing cavities and build their nests in them,” said Davenport. “They pick already available accommodations and make them their own. Our research aims at explaining why they choose certain locations to nest and not others.”
The project quickly became a campus-wide effort. OU’s Sigma Zeta National Science and Mathematics Society stepped in to help create the habitats, in hopes that the birds would choose them. Chassidy Teal, Sigma Zeta president, and the other Sigma Zeta members built the birds’ boxes as a service project. Dr. John Cramer, OU professor of physics, helped with the building effort and installed them around campus.
There are now 10 boxes all over the OU campus and half of them are occupied by bluebird families. Some are home to adult birds only, some have eggs in them and some little hatchlings. Davenport and Vuong take turns checking the boxes and recording data several times every week.
“Eastern bluebirds don’t have as many cavities available for nesting as they did before extensive logging and land development,” said Dr. Donnelly. “Boxes serve as suitable substitutes.”
Thanks to the joint effort of the honor society and Dr. Cramer, the two OU seniors are able to use their classroom knowledge and apply it to this hands-on project. But, the experiment has benefitted the bluebirds as well as the students studying them.
“We did not have many bluebirds on campus,” said Dr. Cramer. “The experiment has attracted them to our outdoor classroom.”
Join the Urban Ecology Program and other OU science students during Science-Palooza on Wednesday, April 25, from 12:30 to 1:30 in the Academic Success Center, when they will present their projects and findings from their end-of-semester projects.
The male bluebird passes a worm to the female. She will then feed it to the little baby bluebirds.
View more photos of OUr bluebird families!
2012 Symposium Spotlights Oglethorpe Students’ Academic Accomplishments
Posted by: | April 13, 2012 | Comments
On Tuesday, the OU community gathered for the 2012 Liberal Arts and Sciences Symposium to celebrate the academic achievements of our students. The annual event provides OU students with a platform to present their own work—and fellow students, faculty, parents, and staff take the opportunity to learn more about the various topics, support the presenters, and engage in passionate discussions. Nearly 200 students presented during more than 30 sessions about topics drawn from a wide variety of disciplines.
We asked students Joscelyn Stein, Dayana Diaz, and Weston Manders to give us their thoughts about the Symposium:
This year’s topics ranged from “The Homeric Hero: What Winston Churchill and Odysseus have in common…or not” to “Mosquito in the Room: America’s Cuban Obsession and the Need for a New Era of Cuban-American Relations,” to “The Evolution of Fairies in Literature: From Oral Folk Tales to Peter Pan” and “The Benefits of Cooperative Interspecies Evolution: Why Would you have a Dog?”
A new addition to the day-long event was StoryCore, where students from the OU radio station video recorded students and faculty sharing “OUr Core moments,” reflections on the Core Curriculum. Oglethorpe’s Core Program helps shape our academic community and is regularly the focus of shared stories. Many of us have our “Core moments”—when something we encounter reminds us of something we learned in a Core course, when ideas are suddenly are connected. The collection of 90-second videos will be posted on the StoryCore page over the next few weeks. Here’s the first StoryCore video in the series, by Chelsea Reed ’13, a Communications and Rhetoric major.
Also new to the Symposium this year was an “Homage To OUr CORE in Poetry and Creative Verse.” The poetry slam/creative word jam took place in the Lupton Auditorium and gave a stage to students and faculty to share their poetry, spoken word and freestyle compositions, penned in honor of our Core Curriculum. The friendly competition chose winners in a few categories:
Judges’ Choice: Kaci Palmore
Most Creative: Chou Thao
Connection to Core: Will Carter
The day-long celebration of student achievements ended in the Conant Performing Arts Center with the annual Honors and Awards Convocation, which recognized individuals who had excelled during the academic year. Congratulations to all of the honorees!
View photos from the 2012 Liberal Arts & Sciences Symposium!