News from Transy

Psychology professor and neuroscience program director Meg Upchurch. LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University will offer a neuroscience major beginning this fall. Students will delve into how the brain makes us who we are. “Neuroscience explores the most complex structure in the known universe: the human brain,” said Meg Upchurch, psychology professor and neuroscience program director. The program will offer an emphasis in biology, psychology or computer science. Students also will be able to apply philosophy – and possibly music – classes to the major. They will receive a well-rounded education while studying the intricacies of the nervous system. The new major also dovetails with the university’s strategic plan, Transylvania 2020, which calls for expanded multidisciplinary initiatives. The program will be unlike neuroscience majors at other colleges because it will require that all neuroscience majors take a computer class. The study of brains and computers merge in the development of artificial intelligence and robotics. For instance, computer scientists look at living neural networks to learn how to create more effective machines. And studying how a robot interacts with its environment sheds light on how organisms with a nervous system operate. Neuroscience is a growing discipline – and a hot topic. The field tackles issues such as athletes’ head injuries in contact sports, and it addresses how to interpret brain scans of criminals who say they couldn’t help what they did because their frontal cortex isn’t functioning properly. Looking at the larger picture, because

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—For the second year in a row, Transylvania tallied significant energy savings during the university’s winter break by implementing a campus-wide shutdown plan. While students, faculty, and the majority of the university’s staff enjoyed a two-week holiday break (December 20, 2012 – January 2, 2013), physical plant staff and others took steps to ensure energy consumption during that time was minimal. Conscientious preparation by all members of the campus community resulted in energy savings of $61,125, which was $4,886 more than the university saved during last winter’s shut down. “By adopting and adhering to a well-orchestrated holiday shutdown plan, we were able to reduce energy consumption in all campus buildings,” said Marc Mathews, vice president for finance and business. “This not only helps us meet our conservation and sustainability goals, it also allows us to redirect those funds to academic and extracurricular programs that directly benefit our students.” Living sustainably is a primary value of the university, which integrates discussion of sustainable practices into academic coursework, visiting lectures, and planning for campus social activities. Students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to consider the impact of their everyday decisions and adopt sustainable practices whenever possible. In addition to establishing the winter break shut down, Transylvania University’s energy policy also sets temperature ranges and operating hours for university-owned buildings, affirms the university’s commitment to purchasing Energy Star equipment, pledges that all new buildings will be constructed to-at minimum-a LEED silver standard,

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LEXINGTON, Ky.— The Transylvania speech and debate team excelled at the 2013 Kentucky Forensic Association State Tournament on Saturday, winning small school debate sweepstakes, and small school individual events sweepstakes as well as being named second overall grand champion. Coach Gary Deaton was also recognized, winning the co-coach of the year award. Transylvania University hosted the tournament, which brought schools all across the state to compete in speech and debate events. In addition to several other awards, Bryan Dickman, of Williamsburg, Ky., also received the Harlan Hamm Award for Speech and Debate Excellence, which honors a student who displays service to the activity, service to the university and community, and competitive excellence. Transylvania debate teams accounted for four out of the eight debate quarter-finalists, three out of the four semi-finalists, and won both first (Taylor Deaton, of Richmond, Ky., and Rachel Smith, of Mayfield, Ky.) and second (Dickman and Ian Smith, of Lawrenceburg, Ky.) place debate team. Many other team members went on to win individual awards as well, including four first place individual awards; four second place individual awards; and five third place individual awards. Ian Smith, Taylor Deaton and Angelica Miller, of Bristol, Va., also received quadrathon awards, which measures personal success in four or more events. Transylvania University’s debate team coaching staff includes Gary Deaton and alums Leigh Ann Jordan, associate director of forensics; Clint Jones, assistant director of forensics; Raven Mineo, director of debate; and Brian

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Linda Martín Alcoff, president of the American Philosophical Association, professor and author, will deliver the 2013 Rick O’Neil lecture, “Social Identities and the Question of Realism: Against Post-Ethnic Utopias,” at Transylvania University Tuesday, Feb. 19, at 7 p.m. in Carrick Theater in the Mitchell Fine Arts Center. The talk is free and open to the public. Martín Alcoff is professor of philosophy at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center. She has degrees from Georgia State University and Brown University and has held positions at Syracuse University, SUNY Stony Brook and Kalamazoo College and visiting appointments at Cornell, Brown and the University of Aarhus. Her writings have focused on social identity and race, epistemology and politics, sexual violence, Foucault, and Latino issues in philosophy. She has written two books, “Visible Identities: Race, Gender and the Self,” and “Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory.” She is currently at work on two new books: a book on sexual violence and an account of future of white identity. Also forthcoming is an anthology co-edited with Jack Caputo on the politics of love. She is a co-editor of Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy. The lecture is sponsored by Transylvania’s philosophy program and Sophia, the university’s philosophy society, in honor of the late Transylvania philosophy professor Rick O’Neil. For more information, contact the public relations office at (859) 233-8120.