News from Transy

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Although it’s only the second day of fall term, all first-year and transfer students received their first assignment weeks ago—to read Barbara Kingsolver’s highly acclaimed book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year in Food Life. This year’s First Engagements: A Community Book Project selection tells the story of how for a full year Kingsolver and her family deliberately ate locally-produced food. Kingsolver wrote the central narrative, and her husband, Steven Hopp, wrote in-depth sidebars about various aspects of food-production science and industry. Kingsolver’s 19-year-old daughter, Camille, wrote brief essays on the local-food project, plus nutritional information, meal plans and recipes. First Engagements is designed to provide new students with a common introduction to academic life at Transylvania and to create discussion on a topic of lasting significance. All incoming students received a copy of the book this summer and will participate in one of 40 small discussion groups led by faculty and upper class students from 6:30-8 p.m. on Wednesday, September 9, or Thursday, September 10 in locations across campus. During the discussion, students will be treated to “Transylvania Garden Cookies,” a recipe inspired by Kingsolver’s “Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies” from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and modified by professors Mike Pepper and Kathleen Jagger. The cookies were made and baked by faculty members in the University’s Food Lab and include the following local ingredients: eggs from art professor’s Zoe Strecker’s Peace Roots Farm, Harrodsburg; honey from Hosey’s Kentucky Honey, Midway; whole

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Williams poses with Einstein at the National Academy of Sciences, in Washington, D.C. LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University senior Jessica Williams spent five weeks this summer studying mathematics at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., through the Summer Program for Women in Mathematics. A mathematics major minoring in computer science and philosophy, Williams was one of only 16 female college seniors selected for the program from colleges and universities around the country. All 16 received a travel allowance, campus room and board and a stipend. The program, founded by mathematics professor Murli M. Gupta, offered seminars led by research mathematicians that enabled the students to obtain a deep understanding of basic concepts in several areas of mathematics, to learn how to do independent work and to gain experience in expressing mathematical ideas orally and in writing. Panel discussions were held on graduate schools and careers in mathematics. “I can’t really articulate how much I gained from my five weeks in Washington, D.C.,” said Williams. “It was a once in a lifetime kind of opportunity. The graduate level material and mathematical skills I learned will aid me in the classes I take at Transy in my senior year and in graduate school. In addition to an exposure to higher-level material, the program provided an immense amount of information on graduate school, careers in academia, industry and government, and on the challenges that women face in this field.  The faculty and staff were very

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University senior Andrea Warner, a business administration major, has had a busy summer performing on stages in Kentucky, Wisconsin and New York with Alyson Burke, the other half of country music duo aly’an. They have just released their first CD, Sweet Harmony. The 11 tracks are all original and Warner and Burke share co-writing credits on two. Warner and Burke have known one another since kindergarten and, in their younger years, competed against each other in local talent contests and performed solo acts at Saturday night Jamboree stage shows. They began singing together in 2004 when they fronted the band The Wild Roses, formed by Warner’s father, and launched their duo act a little over a year later. The duo is known for high energy performances, crisp harmonies and a variety of musical styles. They performed at the Collin’s Classic for Children, an event to raise funds for children with cancer, and have opened for Nashville acts like Trent Tomlinson, Cross Canadian Ragweed and Chris Knight. “We’re performing as much as possible, trying to get a lot of exposure and get our name out there,” Warner said. Ideally, Warner hopes to make a career of singing, but she’s also interested in putting her marketing skills to use in the music industry. More information about aly’an and Sweet Harmony can be found on the aly’an Web site, www.alyanmusic.com.

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University senior Andrea Warner, a business administration major, has had a busy summer performing on stages in Kentucky, Wisconsin and New York with Alyson Burke, the other half of country music duo aly’an. They have just released their first CD, Sweet Harmony. The 11 tracks are all original and Warner and Burke share co-writing credits on two. Warner and Burke have known one another since kindergarten and, in their younger years, competed against each other in local talent contests and performed solo acts at Saturday night Jamboree stage shows. They began singing together in 2004 when they fronted the band The Wild Roses, formed by Warner’s father, and launched their duo act a little over a year later. The duo is known for high energy performances, crisp harmonies and a variety of musical styles. They performed at the Collin’s Classic for Children, an event to raise funds for children with cancer, and have opened for Nashville acts like Trent Tomlinson, Cross Canadian Ragweed and Chris Knight. “We’re performing as much as possible, trying to get a lot of exposure and get our name out there,” Warner said. Ideally, Warner hopes to make a career of singing, but she’s also interested in putting her marketing skills to use in the music industry. More information about aly’an and Sweet Harmony can be found on the aly’an Web site, www.alyanmusic.com.

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University senior Joshua Schwartz is spending his summer in California, but he is not lounging on the beach—Schwartz is helping conduct cutting edge research on autism-linked signaling pathways in stem cells at Stanford University. A chemistry and biology double major, Schwartz is at Stanford as part of the Amgen Scholars Summer Research Program, an eight-week biomedical research-intensive program that admitted 30 students from the nearly 500 applicants from across the country. “The laboratory I’m assigned studies the neuroscience of autism and my project is to create brain cells, known as neurons, derived from autistic patients’ skin cells,” explains Schwartz. “Other lab members have already programmed these skin cells into stem cells and now I am trying to make the stem cells differentiate into neurons. This approach to making neurons from autistic patients’ skin cells has two significant implications: it provides a source of potential transplantable neurons to treat autistic patients in the future and scientists may investigate the effects of potential pharmaceuticals on neurons derived from autistic patients.” Students in the program are matched up with a member of Stanford’s faculty and conduct their research projects in the university’s state-of-the-art laboratories. The program culminates in a symposium where students present talks and posters on their summer projects to Stanford faculty, lab mentors and university administrators.  In addition to their time in the lab, students in the program also participate in science field trips, graduate education workshops and social

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