1780 – The Official Blog of Transylvania University

1780 | The Official Blog of Transylvania University

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Eric Stoller, higher education thought leader, to present at Transylvania Monday, April 8; free and open to the public

Posted on by Office of Marketing and Communications

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Eric Stoller, higher education thought leader, consultant and writer will present Monday, April 8, at 7:30 p.m. in Haggin Auditorium in the Mitchell Fine Arts Center. The talk is free and open to the public. Titled “Our Shared Future: Digital Identity, Leadership, and Your Career,” his presentation will focus on social media and teaching students about digital identity development. Stoller is a former academic advisor and web coordinator for the College of Health and Human Sciences at Oregon State University. He served previously as a marketing specialist for student affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has more than 10 years of experience in higher education and student affairs and has been blogging for more than eight years. For more information about Stoller, visit his blog.

Roszell Mack III elected to Transylvania Board of Trustees

Posted on by Office of Marketing and Communications

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Roszell Mack III has been elected to the Transylvania University Board of Trustees. He is president and managing member of Mack & Co., an independent global advisory firm headquartered in New York City and focused on strategic, financial, and alternative investment solutions for the family office marketplace. A native of Lexington, Mack is a graduate of Bryan Station High School. He holds a bachelor of arts degree from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He was previously a founding partner of Ascent Venture Group, LLC, and an investment banker for more than 10 years with Goldman Sachs & Co., Peter J. Solomon Company and Salomon Smith Barney.

Transylvania University Professor Chris Begley leads author through the Honduran jungle

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LEXINGTON, KY.—To tackle one of his most grueling projects yet, journalist Christopher S. Stewart needed someone who could guide him through dangerous jungles and nearly impassable terrains to discover the legend of a city lost to time—the White City in the Mosquito Coast of Honduras. So he turned to archaeologist and Transylvania University professor Chris Begley and chronicled their adventures in his book “Jungleland: A Mysterious Lost City, a WWII Spy, and a True Story of Deadly Adventure,” which was released in January by Harper Collins. In 2008, Begley and Stewart retraced the steps of World War II spy and explorer Theodore Morde, who claimed to have found the ancient city but died unexpectedly before disclosing its whereabouts. Some believe it was the spirits of the lost city—Ciudad Blanca—that killed him. Through entries in Morde’s secret journal, Stewart recreates the explorer’s journey to the Mosquito Coast in “Jungleland” and tells his own story of superstition and fear while traveling with Begley—one of the world’s leading experts on the legend—hundreds of miles through one of the most treacherous regions in the world. Along the way they encountered threats including deadly snakes, pirates, and viruses. “Chris Begley led me through the Honduran jungle, picked me up when I fell down, and generally kept me alive as we hunted down the mystery of the great White City,” explained Stewart. “I get why people refer to him by his other name: Indiana Jones.”  

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Poet Maurice Manning will give reading at Transylvania April 1 at 7:30 p.m.

Posted on by Office of Marketing and Communications

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Poet Maurice Manning will read from a collection of his work, including his upcoming book “The Gone and the Going Away,” Monday, April 1, at 7:30 p.m. in Carrick Theater in the Mitchell Fine Arts Center. The event is free and open to the public. Manning, who has published four books of poetry, was recently selected as one of the judges for the National Book Award poetry prize, which was awarded in November. On a panel with four other judges, he helped select a winner for the poetry prize from 181 submissions. Manning’s most recent book, “The Common Man,” was one of three finalists for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. His first collection, “Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions,” was selected for the 2000 Yale Series of Younger Poets. He has had his works in publications including The New Yorker, Washington Square, The Southern Review, Poetry, Shenandoah, and The Virginia Quarterly Review. Manning’s fifth book, “The Gone and the Going Away,” will be published in April. Manning joined the Transylvania faculty in September 2012 as an English professor and writer in residence. He also teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, the Appalachian Writers Workshop, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. The lecture is sponsored by the Delcamp Visiting Writer series. For more information, contact the public relations office at (859) 233-8120.

Transylvania adds neuroscience major

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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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