News from Transy

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania biology professor Becky Fox palmed baby sparrows from a nest on the side of an old barn. As she weighed the chicks on a digital scale, the parents probably weren’t far off. Sometimes they watch, raising a fuss. How particular birds cope with ruffled feathers is actually part of what Fox, a group of Transylvania students and University of Kentucky professors David Westneat and Matthew Schofield are studying this summer at the sprawling Coldstream Farm research facility. A four-year, $670,000 National Science Foundation grant is funding the project. Depending on personality, birds react differently to environmental variability. These researchers want to know how that affects parental care. Fox measures the parents’ blood levels for two hormones—corticosterone, which varies as individuals deal with environmental stress, and prolactin, which broadly underlies how these house sparrows raise nestlings. To mix things up, researchers swap chicks and attach objects to the nests. When faced with stressors such as these, some parents try harder to feed offspring; others don’t. Fox wants to know if hormonal differences are at work. “The field of animal personality is new,” she said. “We don’t have a handle on the physiology.” There is great interest in describing these individual differences quantitatively. And research such as this could help shed light on human parenting. Westneat is studying how sparrow parents gamble by visiting either areas where they know there will be a small but reliable amount of food or

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Karen Anderson, coordinator of community service and civic engagement at Transylvania University, has been appointed to the Kentucky Commission on Community Volunteerism and Service by Gov. Steve Beshear. The 25-member commission was created in 1994 and serves as a conduit for funding supporting Kentucky AmeriCorps programs. Commission members review and recommend funding requests for service opportunities all around the state, a process Anderson has become very familiar with during her nearly 20 years at Transylvania. She was asked to apply by former commissioner Eileen Cackowski. “I’m grateful she asked me,” Anderson said. “I think being a commissioner will be a natural part of what I’m already doing at Transylvania. Commissioners go out and see what’s going on and represent our commonwealth and our government, and I’ve been doing that as part of my job for years. So I’ll be able to keep getting out and connecting, not just for Transylvania, but on behalf of our commonwealth.” AmeriCorps is a national program that works to place people in full-time service opportunities in exchange for a living stipend. Opportunities include mentoring and tutoring in Kentucky schools, working with homelessness prevention and providing in-home services to seniors with disabilities. Part of Anderson’s time as commissioner will be spent organizing the 20th anniversary of the program, which will take place around the National Day of Service Sept. 11. “Here in Kentucky we’ll be using that opportunity for the swearing in of our new

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Browning Smith, a 2014 graduate of Transylvania University from Russellville, Ky., has won a national sustainability contest sponsored by dining service provider Sodexo. As part of his prize, Sodexo donated $2,500 to Seedleaf—a Lexington-based non-profit committed to increasing the amount, affordability, nutritional value, and sustainability of food available to people at risk of hunger in central Kentucky—which Smith chose as his favorite local charity. The “Send Ur Message” contest was part of a national campaign inspired by Sodexo’s Better Tomorrow Plan, which promotes global sustainability. Smith, a biology major, was selected after filling out a survey about what he felt Sodexo could do to improve its food service when it comes to sustainability. He and three other winners received a $250 Visa gift card along with the $2,500 each winner donated to the food-based charity of his choice. After taking an interdisciplinary course at Transylvania that focused on the philosophy and sociology of gardening as well as hands-on learning about soil science and composting, Smith then volunteered with Seedleaf. The organization was a logical choice to receive his check. “I knew they were doing great things in the community right down the street,” Smith said. “They’re the other end of the food industry, where Sodexo is the larger, more industrial side, and the food system needs to be changed from both ends.” Seedleaf has partnered with Transylvania and Sodexo for three years, picking up the pre-consumer waste from the

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