1780 – The Official Blog of Transylvania University

1780 | The Official Blog of Transylvania University

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Transylvania graduate receives top national leadership honor

Posted on by Office of Marketing and Communications

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The national leadership society Omicron Delta Kappa has recognized recent Transylvania University graduate Raisa Tikhtman as a Leader of the Year in the area of campus or community service. The prestigious award honors students who have demonstrated the greatest dedication to one of five phases of campus life celebrated by ODK: athletics, campus or community service, creative and performing arts, journalism, speech and mass media, and scholarship. “Raisa Tikhtman is a natural leader in every sense,” said Tiffany Wheeler, who is the ODK faculty advisor at Transylvania and an education professor and program director. “She is poised, decisive, and highly organized. Raisa possesses a collaborative spirit and is adept at enabling others to utilize their strengths while working together for a common purpose. She is also extremely versatile and has been very successful in leading a variety of organizations, which include serving as president of her sorority and ODK, an August term scholar, and a site leader for Transylvania Alternative Spring Break.” Tikhtman’s leadership qualities match her strengths as a scholar, Wheeler said, noting that she graduated with a 4.0 GPA in both of her majors: biochemistry and French. In fact, the combination became her passport to study nanotechnology in France and traditional medicine in Madagascar.   “The balance between natural science and a humanities-based education is really important to me,” Tikhtman explained. “It’s been essential to my mental stability as a student, and it’s forced me to think

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Transylvania class of 2018 most diverse group yet

Posted on by Office of Marketing and Communications

LEXINGTON, Ky.—The incoming class at Transylvania University is the most geographically, racially and ethnically diverse class in the history of the school. Nine percent of the 274 students in the class of 2018 are from outside the United States, and 19 percent identify themselves as a member of a racial or ethnic minority group. Both are school records. Thirty-one percent of the class is from outside Kentucky, the highest percentage since 1974. Those statistics are partly a result of enhanced recruiting efforts stemming from the university’s 2011 Strategic Enrollment Plan, which calls for a more diverse campus. “We’ve been more intentional about recognizing that a more diverse community creates a richer teaching and learning environment for our students and provides them with more opportunities,” Vice President for Enrollment and Dean of Admissions Brad Goan said. “We’ve been actively engaging community-based organizations and schools and school districts where there are more diverse populations.” The efforts have been paying off, and not just by quantifiable metrics. In a recent profile compiled by The Princeton Review, one anonymous student praised Transylvania for its culture, saying, “We…have a huge population of individuals from different backgrounds, including differences in sexual orientation, class, religion, region, and political orientation.” To go along with the strong diversity numbers, the class is academically the strongest the school has ever seen, with an ACT middle 50 percent of 25-30, seven National Merit Scholars, and 45 graduates of the Kentucky Governor’s

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Education and Innovation: Time for a Change

Posted on by President Seamus Carey

The following originally appeared in The Huffington Post. Throughout America, there’s a persistent national debate about the value of a liberal arts education. A day seldom passes when a new study doesn’t appear about student debt, unemployed graduates, the need for professional training and, the perennial question, “Who needs to study Plato anyway?” What we once took for granted in higher education has been turned on its head. The scrutiny of the liberal arts comes at a time when the economic performance of the United States has been languishing for more than six years. As a result, colleges are not only being forced to control costs but also to innovate and invest more in their students to keep up with the competition. For a university to be competitive nowadays, it must offer more than a good education. At many schools, large sums of donor dollars are being funneled into infrastructure projects, such as new dormitories, dining halls, fitness centers and even state-of-the-art climbing walls, which supporters justify as necessary to attract the best students.

Dean search continues Transylvania’s leadership transformation

Posted on by Office of Marketing and Communications

LEXINGTON Ky.—As part of a broader leadership transformation that began with selecting a new president, Transylvania University has begun a search for a vice president for academic affairs and dean of the university. Michael J. Bell is serving as interim vice president and dean of the university. The new dean will help lead the campus community as the school carries out the Transylvania 2020 strategic plan—a roadmap that provides a vision and direction for enhancing student success and curricular innovation. A member of the executive cabinet, the dean is responsible for enriching and expanding academic programs while overseeing the university’s library, writing center, study abroad program, first-year academic experience, and career development and registrar offices. As the university enters a bold new era, it is looking for a dean who is not only an accomplished scholar, educator and administrator—but also someone with a strong commitment to liberal education, shared governance and collegial problem solving. The dean will work closely with President Seamus Carey, who already has made an impact in his first few weeks at Transylvania with the introduction of his new mentoring program, 100 Doors to Success. The initiative pairs first-year students with alumni who can share insights into building successful careers. For more information, visit https://www.transy.edu/about/employment.htm.

Transylvania alumni to transform campus plaza, create scholarship fund

Posted on by Office of Marketing and Communications

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University alumni have united to renovate a gathering place in the heart of the campus—and provide funding for legacy scholarships while they’re at it. To raise money for the Alumni Plaza project, graduates of the university are asking donors to have their name—or the name of someone they’d like to honor—engraved on a brick that will be placed in the busy meeting area behind historic Old Morrison. “Our plan is to transform Haupt Plaza into a true campus center—a place of pride and beauty for all of the Transylvania community past, present, and future,” according to alumni representatives. “Hand-in-hand with this bricks-and-mortar component is the effort to create a new scholarship fund for legacy students to ensure that the campus will persist with new generations of Pioneers. We look forward to creating an inspiring and functional outdoor gathering space for future Transylvania students to enjoy.” The goal for the Alumni Plaza Brick Project is to raise at least $250,000 for the renovation, which also will include new trees, seating, and an outdoor classroom with Wi-Fi capability. The Transylvania Alumni Board and the Transylvania University Young Alumni Council already have received almost $135,000 in pledges. These tax-deductible donations are an opportunity for the Transylvania community and friends to not only leave a mark on an institution that has been around for more than 230 years but also help shape the future through the scholarship fund. For more information, contact

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