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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University sophomore Danny Woolums is taking a proactive approach to improving an empty lot at one of the busier intersections on campus. He recognized that the 55-feet-by-33-feet, concrete lot at the corner of Fourth Street and Broadway had potential to be used, but it wasn’t until he read an e-mail asking for submissions for a Lexington 2010 Neighborhood and Community Sustainability Grant that he knew what to do. The grant funds local initiatives to promote environmental awareness and conservation. With the support of the Transylvania administration, Woolums wrote a proposal that would transform the lot into a greenspace with flowers, bushes, and benches for people at the bus stop. He also proposed displaying eco-art by Transylvania students along with a metal sculpture in the center of the lot. “I was walking past the lot, and it occurred to me that I had seen it a lot in the past two years I’ve been here, and there’s nothing that goes on there,” he said. He was awarded the grant during a public ceremony in April, and work will start on the garden in August with a tentative completion date by the end of September. “It’s going to be an extension of the Transylvania community garden and a way of reaching out to the at-large community,” Woolums said. “It’s saying, ‘We want to take a spot that’s useless now, improve it and let you all come in.’” The Transy community

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University seniors Travis Maynard and Liz Lane were chosen to present projects at the 80th Annual Convention of the Southern States Communication Association and 20th Annual Theodore Clevenger Jr. Undergraduate Honors Conference held in early April at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tenn. Writing, rhetoric and communication professor Scott Whiddon, who encouraged them to submit their projects for consideration, called their acceptance to present at the conference “a serious honor.” Maynard’s project was titled “And on the Eighth Day, God Created Rhetoricians: A Case Study of the Creation Museum.” Lane’s project was “Creativity, Consumers and Copyright: How the Internet and Consumer Usage has Changed the Music Industry.” Maynard and Lane are both majoring in writing, rhetoric and communication, one of the newest of the university’s 37 majors. The projects were adapted from larger projects they completed for their senior seminar class, the final component of the major. In this class, students essentially design, research and compose an independent research project that is somewhat equivalent to a master’s thesis chapter. While the goal is to produce a product that is discipline-specific, students draw heavily upon their liberal arts education background. “What I like most about the senior seminar is that students build upon their own interests and connect them to ongoing scholarly conversations,” said Whiddon. “Travis’ project, an analysis of the Creation Museum, connects well with the scholarship of Ernest Bormann, the originator of fantasy-theme based rhetorical methods. Liz’s

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