1780 – The Official Blog of Transylvania University

1780 | The Official Blog of Transylvania University

News from Transy

Three Transylvania students awarded prestigious Transylvania Scholarship

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Three current Transylvania University students have been named Transylvania Scholars. This prestigious scholarship is awarded annually to rising junior and senior students who have achieved outstanding academic records and have made significant service contributions to Transylvania. This scholarship covers tuition and the general fee. The recipients are chosen by a panel of faculty members who interview each applicant. “These are students whose academic and campus community accomplishments are impeccable,” said William F. Pollard, vice president and dean of the college. “Being named a Transylvania Scholar is an extraordinary achievement given the credentials of the finalists, all of whom have outstanding records of academic success and of contributions to the life of the campus.” Rising junior Robert Clark Puckett, a political science major, is from Murray, Ky. Rising junior Sarah Elizabeth Tipton, an English major and classics minor, is from Corbin, Ky. Rising senior Thomas Philip Stephens, a history major, is from Decherd, Tenn. 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.

Transylvania University earns national ranking in “Top 100 Social Media Schools” list; scores in top 3.3 percent of over 9 million Twitter accounts

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University has been named one of the “Top 100 Social Media Colleges” in the country, a list that includes more than 6,000 colleges and universities. To determine its rankings, StudentAdvisor.com looked at schools in terms of how active and effective they are at engaging their audiences on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, iTunes and other social media tools. One of the criteria the site uses in its rankings is enrollment, and it judges the effectiveness based on how many people it is reaching. Transylvania’s enrollment is 1,110, and it has over 3,600 fans on its main Facebook page and over 1,100 followers on its main Twitter account. The Office of Communications manages the main university social media accounts listed in the ranking (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube). “We are very excited to be considered among the social media elite like Harvard, Stanford, Notre Dame and Princeton,” said Sarah Emmons, associate vice president for communications and public relations. “Social media is a powerful way to connect and interact with our constituents and the outside world. Facebook and Twitter, especially, have become important communications platforms for us.” Also included in the “Top 100” ranking is an institution’s score from TwitterGrader.com, which grades the power and reach of any Twitter account based on a number of factors. Transylvania’s Twitter account scores a 96.8 on a 100-point scale and ranks in the top 3.3 percent of over nine million accounts. “Transy has tactfully mastered the art

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Transylvania University and the Carnegie Center sign partnership agreement

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O’Brien and Williams sign the agreement in the board room of Old Morrison. LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University President R. Owen Williams and President of the Board of Directors of the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning Eileen M. O’Brien signed an agreement today to explore the possibility of a significant partnership. “Our goal is for both Transylvania and the Carnegie Center to work together to better enhance our commitment to lifetime learning,” said Williams. The yearlong commitment begins July 1, 2011. During this time, the Carnegie Center and Transylvania will each share space with the other for programs, concerts, lectures, receptions and similar events, will expand or modify current programs at the Carnegie Center and will formalize and expand service learning and volunteer support. “We are excited to have this collaborative effort with Transylvania formally acknowledged,” said O’Brien. “Both organizations have demonstrated such a tremendous commitment to lifetime learning and the literary arts, which bodes well for our future.” Transylvania has a long history of its students volunteering in various capacities at the Carnegie Center. “We believe we can do more than what we’ve been doing and are excited about the possibility of making the Carnegie Center even stronger,” said Williams.  “This is a win-win agreement.”

R. Owen Williams inaugurated as Transylvania University’s 25th president

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—R. Owen Williams was inaugurated as Transylvania University’s 25th president on the steps of historic Old Morrison this morning. Before an audience of students, faculty, staff, alumni, trustees and guests, including Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear and Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, Williams was presented with the presidential medallion and the university’s mace. In his inaugural address, “Question Everything, Accomplish Anything,” Williams invoked Transylvania’s history as a “lamp in the forest” in the early days of the American republic. Reflecting on the meaning of Transylvania’s liberal arts philosophy, Williams stated that the liberal arts could be better called “the liberating arts,” because “they liberate us from the limits of our own experience, from prejudice, ideology and impetuousness, but most of all, from the inclination toward hubris instead of analysis.” Williams challenged students to ask questions and have big ambitions. “Dare to change your surroundings,” he said. “Embrace the world’s ailments as your opportunities. Transylvania will help you find your passion, but to be successful, you must clothe that passion with perseverance.” Gray and Beshear expressed their optimism about Williams and the university’s future. “In the nine months he’s been president,” Beshear said in his remarks, “he’s made it very clear that his mind is focused in a laser-like fashion on not only what Transylvania has been, but on what it can be in the future.” Gray stated that Transylvania “represents the best of [Lexington’s] purpose and promise.” David W. Blight, professor

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Inaugural symposium on the Civil War features nationally recognized historians and authors David W. Blight, Annette Gordon-Reed, John McCardell Jr. and Jed Shugerman

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Four nationally recognized speakers will discuss “The Civil War and Reconstruction in the Border States: History and Memory at the Sesquicentennial,” on Thursday, April 28, at 3 p.m. in Haggin Auditorium. The symposium, part of the inauguration celebration of R. Owen Williams as the 25th president of Transylvania University, is free and open to the public. The symposium topic is the focus of Williams’s scholarly work and the panelists—David W. Blight, professor of American history at Yale University; Annette Gordon-Reed, professor of law and history at Harvard University; John McCardell Jr., vice chancellor and president of The University of the South; and Jed Shugerman (moderator), assistant professor of law at Harvard—are former colleagues. Panelist: David W. Blight is professor of American history at Yale University and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale. He is the author of “The Civil War in Modern Memory: Robert Penn Warren, Bruce Catton, Edmund Wilson, James Baldwin,” to be published in September by Harvard University Press. He is working on a biography of Frederick Douglass, scheduled for publication in 2013 by Simon and Shuster. Blight’s book, “A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including their Narratives of Emancipation,” focuses on rare slave narratives that were the subject of a front page story in the New York Times in 2004. Blight also wrote “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory,”

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