News from Transy

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Troy Heffron joins the Transylvania University staff as the AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer in the office of community service and civic engagement. Heffron will coordinate the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service with community projects involving students from Transylvania, Bluegrass Community and Technical College and the University of Kentucky. Heffron will develop programs to increase the number of tutors on the Transylvania Tutoring Team and support the development of the Fayette County Public Schools Volunteer System. He will also plan Transylvania’s September 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance and National Volunteer Week events. Heffron graduated from Central Michigan University with a bachelor’s of science in business administration. He was the alternative break chairperson and summer staff member for the Mary Ellen Brandell Volunteer Center where he provided assistance to the advisory board of 18 student leaders, implemented program policies and managed weekly meetings. He also planned volunteer events to promote active citizenship and service learning. In the summer of 2011 he was the marketing, communications and development intern for the Nashville Sports Council, responsible for updating social media sites and writing web content and newsletters.

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University’s Studio 300: Digital Art and Music Festival offers up the cutting edge of art in the digital age with seven exhibitions, three concerts, two lectures and over 20 musicians and artists from  eight countries. The festival, which is free and open to the community, runs Friday and Saturday, Sept. 28 and 29. The mission of the festival is to explore creative manifestations of technology through concerts and exhibitions of digital art and music. Digital art has expanded artistic and musical mediums far beyond paint brushes and pianos. “Studio 300 is an exciting event because all the artists and musicians involved are also technologists that build their own tools, instead of using preexisting tools in traditional ways,” says Timothy Polashek, director of the festival and music professor at Transylvania.   Exhibitions include interactive art, pre-recorded tracks created in electronic music studios and music that is generated by original computer programs. The festival will give Transylvania students and the community “an exclusive front row seat,” Polashek says, to experience the newest developments of international digital art.   Studio 300 begins with an artist’s talk on Friday at 10:30 a.m., an afternoon of open art installations across campus and a concert. Friday night offers two concerts. The first begins at 7:30 p.m. in Haggin Auditorium and the second at Al’s Bar starting at 11 p.m. Each concert features six different artist-composers offering the audience a wide exposure to unique video,

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Ashley Gutshall and Tristan Fretwell have been named assistant directors of residence life at Transylvania University. They will maintain housing records and the physical condition of the residence halls, lead staff functions, provide program support, and mentor the residence life student staff. In 2008, Gutshall worked through Americorps VISTA in Transylvania’s office of community service and civic engagement. She developed and recruited students for an Alternative Spring Break, established a mentoring program and bridged connections between the campus and the community.  “I am so excited to be back at Transy,” Gutshall said. “I loved my time here with the AmeriCorps VISTA program and I am looking forward to working with our wonderful staff and students.” Gutshall interned with Housing and Dining services at Kansas State University and worked as a graduate assistant for sexual assault and violence intervention and prevention with the University of South Carolina (USC). She has a B.A. in English from James Madison University and an M.A. in higher education and student affairs from USC. Fretwell has been at Transylvania since 2011 as the area coordinator of residence life. He oversaw four upper-class student residence halls, participated in an emergency on-call system, maintained the staff budget, bi-weekly staff meetings and recruited prospective residence life members. “With so many exciting changes to the university this year I cannot wait to start working with our incredible students and amazing staff and faculty,” Fretwell said. Before coming to Transylvania he

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