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Transylvania student spends summer researching autism at Stanford University

Posted on August 13, 2009July 14, 2020 by Office of Marketing and Communications

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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Transylvania ranked as one of nation’s best colleges by The Princeton Review

Posted on July 28, 2009July 14, 2020 by Office of Marketing and Communications

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University is listed in The Princeton Review’s The Best 371 Colleges, a ranking that includes the top 15 percent of America’s 2,500 four-year colleges. “We chose schools for this book primarily for their outstanding academics,” said Robert Franek, Princeton Review’s vice president for publishing. The book’s two-page profile of Transylvania includes comments from Transy students surveyed for the book. Included in those comments were descriptions of Transylvania as a “small and ‘very challenging’ bastion of the liberal arts and sciences with a ‘strong premed program,’ ‘a remarkable pre-law program,’ and a broad core curriculum.” A sophomore is quoted as saying, “the small college atmosphere allows students to participate in many arenas. At many schools, a math major would never be able to sing in the choir, work on the school newspaper, and be a resident assistant.” Other students said that “academic standards here are high” and dedication is “required if you want to excel.” The low student-to-faculty ratio means professors “are really concerned about helping you learn” and are “great to just sit down and talk with during their office hours.” The schools’ evaluations are based on institutional data, feedback from current students, visits to the schools, opinions of independent college counselors and other factors. The Princeton Review, a New York-based education services company known for its education, admission and test-prep services, is not affiliated with Princeton University or ETS. Transylvania, founded in 1780, is the nation’s sixteenth

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Seventeen professors from across the country will participate in Transylvania’s fourth annual seminar on liberal education

Posted on July 23, 2009July 14, 2020 by Office of Marketing and Communications

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University, an early leader in liberal arts education, will host the fourth annual faculty seminar titled Twenty-first Century Liberal Education: A Contested Concept, July 23-26. The 17 seminar participants were selected from a pool of applicants from prominent liberal arts colleges throughout the country. They reflect the diversity within the professorate at liberal arts colleges and include faculty members from Rhodes, Agnes Scott, Washington and Jefferson, Washington and Lee, the University of South Carolina, Scripps and Earlham. Seminar sessions include “The Historical Background to the Contemporary Debates,” “The Classical Tradition in the 20th Century: Robert Maynard Hutchins,” “The Rival Tradition: John Dewey,” “The Classical Tradition Redux: Allan Bloom” and “The Purposes of Liberal Education: Varieties of Individual Development.” Participants are asked to consider the application of liberal education principles to enhance their own effectiveness as college and university teachers – in the classroom, in the preparation of course offerings and in the construction of curricula at their academic institutions. Susan Rankaitis, Fletcher Jones Chair of Studio Art at Scripps College, will give the opening address, “The Arts in the Liberal Arts.” The plenary speaker is Francis Oakley, President Emeritus and Edward Dorr Griffin Professor of the History of Ideas at Williams College and President Emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies. His address is titled “Colleges and the Humanities: An Institutional Perspective on Liberal Education.” Through this seminar, Transylvania University and its Bingham Program for Excellence in

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