Month: April 2010

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University seniors Travis Maynard and Liz Lane were chosen to present projects at the 80th Annual Convention of the Southern States Communication Association and 20th Annual Theodore Clevenger Jr. Undergraduate Honors Conference held in early April at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tenn. Writing, rhetoric and communication professor Scott Whiddon, who encouraged them to submit their projects for consideration, called their acceptance to present at the conference “a serious honor.” Maynard’s project was titled “And on the Eighth Day, God Created Rhetoricians: A Case Study of the Creation Museum.” Lane’s project was “Creativity, Consumers and Copyright: How the Internet and Consumer Usage has Changed the Music Industry.” Maynard and Lane are both majoring in writing, rhetoric and communication, one of the newest of the university’s 37 majors. The projects were adapted from larger projects they completed for their senior seminar class, the final component of the major. In this class, students essentially design, research and compose an independent research project that is somewhat equivalent to a master’s thesis chapter. While the goal is to produce a product that is discipline-specific, students draw heavily upon their liberal arts education background. “What I like most about the senior seminar is that students build upon their own interests and connect them to ongoing scholarly conversations,” said Whiddon. “Travis’ project, an analysis of the Creation Museum, connects well with the scholarship of Ernest Bormann, the originator of fantasy-theme based rhetorical methods. Liz’s

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Three Transylvania University juniors, Abigail Dority, Holly Milburn and Jessica Short, have been awarded scholarships by the Lexington Rotary Club. Dority, a sociology major, is a nontraditional student, having served in the United States Army, mothered two children and helped her husband through medical school before she attended Transylvania. She teaches yoga on campus and is a member of the sociology honor society. She plans to attend graduate school for sociology. Milburn, a social justice major, works as a student assistant in the president’s office during the day and participates in the alumni office’s phone-a-thon at night. She was named to the 2010 all-conference basketball team, has been designated Most Valuable Player for the varsity track and field team and received the Lydia Todd Hunter award as the “best all-around sophomore woman” last year. Short, a mathematics and physics double major, is a William T. Young Scholar and is involved in a wide range of activities including karate club, Phi Alpha Delta pre-law fraternity and math club. She has served in the student government association since her freshman year. She plans to attend law or graduate school. Transylvania, founded in 1780, is the nation’s sixteenth oldest institution of higher learning and is consistently ranked in national publications as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country.