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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University, an early leader in liberal arts education, will host a faculty seminar titled Twenty-first Century Liberal Education: A Contested Concept, July 26-29. The 17 seminar participants were selected from a pool of over 50 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 Pomona College, Hamilton College and Washington & Lee University among others. Seminar sessions include “Alternate Concepts of Liberal Education,” “Historical Evolution of Liberal Education” and “The Purposes of Liberal Education: Varieties of Individual Development and Social Engagement.” 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. Margaret Anderson, professor of biology at Smith College, will give the opening address, “The Sciences Are Also Liberal Arts.” The plenary speaker is John K. Roth, Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and founding director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College. His address is entitled, “What Matters Most? Liberal Arts Education in Perilous Times.” Through this seminar, Transylvania University and its Bingham Program for Excellence in Teaching, seeks to contribute to a national conversation on the idea of liberal education and the mission of the liberal arts college

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania music professor Larry Barnes’s composition “Toccata: Act of War,” is featured on “Sonance: New Music for Piano,” recently released by Capstone Records. Barnes’s “Toccata” was chosen in an international competition, from over 150 entries. The piece was originally composed in 2002 for a commission by colleague Gregory Partain, professor of piano at Transylvania. The disc features a variety of new work by 11 composers performed by Jeri-Mae G. Astolfi. Barnes’s music has been featured at festivals and concert series in North America, Europe and Asia. His music has been described by the New York Times as “finely sensitive” and by the Village Voice as “Lovely and remarkably controlled in its performance.” He is the recipient of the Cleveland Orchestra Premier Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Composer Fellowship, 25 ASCAP awards and a Bingham Fellowship for excellence in teaching at Transylvania. “When I began writing the piece in early 2001, its title was intended solely as a metaphor for the explosive nature of the work,” said Barnes. “Of course, both the title and music took on a new meaning after the nation was plunged into vulnerability on September 11. ‘Toccata: Act of War’ is passionate, barbaric, moody and impulsive. Bursting with anger, its pent-up rage is only briefly interrupted by moments of lyricism. The brief central core is a respite from this turmoil, but it cannot last, just as the realization of a world forever changed by

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