If you’re interested in providing students off-campus learning opportunities, read on.
WKU’s Extended Learning and Outreach (DELO) partners with individual faculty members, their departments, and colleges to develop and administer Study Away and Faculty-Led Study Abroad programs.
A straightforward way to differentiate the two programs is… Study Away means “No Passport Required” while Faculty-Led Study Abroad programs do require a passport.
DELO provides the administrative support for both programs so you can focus on creating an effective academic experience for your students.
DELO is your first stop for developing a Study Away program. In fact, Study Away was created to complement faculty-led study abroad as a means to offer off-campus learning opportunities to more students. Study Away is designed to provide a full range of administrative and financial support services to faculty program leaders.
DELO is also your first stop to develop your Faculty-Led Study Abroad program. Building on the Study Away model, DELO now collaborates with Study Abroad & Global Learning and the Office of International Programs to support your learning objectives that advance your department and college internationalization goals.
Consider this a call for program proposals.
Whether you’re a first-timer or veteran, now is the time to start your program development for summer 2013 as well as winter 2014 programs. We always recommend that students plan ahead when deciding on the right study abroad program, so we encourage faculty program leaders to do the same in order to make each program the best it can be.
Your link to Study Away development is here.
Your link to Faculty-Led Study Abroad development in here.
We look forward to hearing from you.
(Source: Email from Jerry Barnaby, Director, Study Away, Knicely Center 121, phone: 270-745-2231)
from 4-5pm in the McLean Community Room. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Wed, Oct 17, 2012, 3-4pm, Kentucky Building Centennial Exhibition Gallery
Students who are going to Harlaxton in spring 2013 and all those who are interested in attending Harlaxton in the future, please join us next Wednesday for a reception with Gordon Kingsley, Principal of Harlaxton, and his wife, Suzanne Kingsley, and Earl Kirk, the Director of Study Abroad at the University of Evansville/Harlaxton College.
Free & swipeable!
This is the second in a series of blog roundtables for the Honors course Citizen and Self (read the first on here). The students here completed the course last year and then applied to be a part of the course’s leadership team this semester. They act as coaches, editors, and support to the current students, working closely with the professors to develop and adjust the course. A central part of the course is the idea that learning is most likely when the material is engaging, inspiring, and relevant. The student leadership team for the course works hard to help make this happen. Students who have taken Citizen and Self are eligible to apply to be on the leadership team for the Spring 2013 semester. You should contact Prof. Elizabeth Gish (Elizabeth.Gish@wku.edu) for more information on applying.
Anna Helton is originally from Dothan, Alabama but later moved to Glasgow, Kentucky. She graduated from High School in 2011 and is majoring in History and French. An interest in octopi led her to, unfortunately, choose Biology as a major at one point. Her interests include cats, libraries, stream-of-consciousness, the 16th century, Hieronymous Bosch, and a multitude of other dead people. She plans to study abroad in Europe, specifically France and the British Isles. At the moment, she plans to go to graduate school to study library sciences and history with a specialty in book and library history. Her dream is to be an academic librarian at anywhere that she is employable.
Phil Pearson is from Belleville, Illinois, a mere 5 minutes from St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated from Belleville Township High School West in 2011. He is majoring in History with a focus on Pre-Law. His hobbies include playing sports for fun or competition, for example, soccer or volleyball. He also follows just about every sport religiously. He is also a die-hard fan of the Harry Potter series. His future plans include going to Law School and then begin his career as a prosecution attorney. (Phil is pictured here with two other Citizen and Self graduates: Adam Rumor and Ben Conniff.)
Sarah Brazier grew up in Wadsworth, Ohio as the middle child of seven. After graduating from Wadsworth Senior High School in 2010, she came to WKU where she is studying Broadcast News. On the weekends she attends tournaments across the country with the WKU Forensics team, and when her thoughts are not occupied by performance, she reads Hemingway, writes prose-poetry, and thinks about if she’s chewing on “food” or a “food-like-product.” In the future, she plans to pursue greatness, live in Texas, go to Delphi, Greece, and save the world, one recycled water-bottle at a time.
Kaitlyn Dickinson was born in Owensboro, KY, but grew up in Muhlenberg County, KY. She has lived in Bowling Green for about 10 years. After graduating from Greenwood High School in 2011, she decided to pursue her dream of going to law school by declaring her major as English, with professional writing and Pre-Law concentrations. Her job at a local law firm is one of her favorite things. She does real estate and divorce work at this law firm and thoroughly enjoys the stressful atmosphere that comes along with it. Her hobbies include watching TV including NCIS and the Bachelor, reading action/romance novels, and going on random and crazy adventures with her best friends. Her future plans are to attend a law school and begin her successful career as an attorney.
Jordon Hagan grew up in Tompkinsville, KY and graduated from Monroe County High School in 2011. Growing up in a family of business owners, she feels a passion to pursue a career in business and is double majoring in Business Administration and Accounting. She loves to travel the world with her mom, get ambushed by her three pugs, and is a health enthusiast. Jordon’s future plans include furthering her education with a MBA; discovering more corners of the world; and living a full, healthy life while inspiring others to do so as well.
Bradley Blankenship was born and raised in Scottsville, KY. He is a biology major with a Pre-Med focus, planning to pursue a career in oncology. He enjoys traveling anywhere and everywhere, and plans to study aboard in Greece and Kenya while here at WKU. He enjoys most every genre of music, playing piano and acoustic guitar, as well as spending time with his family, friends, and SAE fraternity brothers.
You took Citizen and Self last year and then decided to come back to be part of the course again for independent study credit. Why is that?
Kaitlyn: I fell in love with this class last semester. It took up a lot of my time, but the rewards were outstanding. I wanted to take all that I learned and give back to the new students. I wanted to show them that the more you put into the class, the more you will get out. I’ve never been challenged this much in a class before, so the curriculum, questioning, and intense discussions were quite new to me. I knew I wanted to come back, as I will continue to come back for semesters in the future.
Anna: Citizen and Self presents a great opportunity for students to grapple with the real issues of community that often get glossed over by either misdirected idealism or politicized negativity. This class helped me to gain a sense of personal empowerment in taking on roles in the community, and in many ways changed the way I looked at the oft-complicated reality of “change.” This I think is a very transforming experience that I wanted to continue being involved with.
Phil: I felt like I could give back to this class which gave to me much more than a measly grade. The concept that is being delivered in this class has so many benefits besides another school class. In addition, I know how difficult it is to take a class like this in your first semester, because it truly is unlike anything I’ve ever taken, so I was more than happy to help out and try to guide the students this semester, making their lives a little easier.
Sarah: It was the first time the my role in the world didn’t feel quite so sterile. Suddenly problems were tangible, moveable, changeable things. Like everyone else, I felt empowered, important, and I wanted to give someone else that opportunity. I love asking questions. I love chatting with strangers. I love finding out why people do what they do. Being on the student leadership team was a great opportunity for me to do that.
Jordon: This course was rather challenging for me. I felt the questions presented had a philosophical bent, which forced me to think deeper, dream bigger, and question more. I personally developed so much through this course and continue to till this day because of the doors that were opened for me. I wanted to return to the course to encourage others and help guide them towards their own discovery of themselves. I wish to see the students reflect on this class and see it as a tremendous stepping stone in their journey through discovering their purpose and goals in life.
Bradley: Some of the discussions we had in the class last year really struck a chord with me. I wanted to continue to be a part of this course so that hopefully I could connect with the new students this semester and help them reap the same benefits I did, as well as learning more myself.
in Bates Classroom & Capstone Experience/Thesis (CE/T) info table in Bates Lobby!
Please see Deadlines under Calendar for more important upcoming due dates!
On October 27, 2012 Golden Key will continue its partnership with Make A Difference Day. We will be offering 10 free t-shirts to the first 50 chapters who complete the event registration on the GK website for their project. Please visit the MDDay page on the Golden Key website to learn more about how you and your chapter can get involved!
Golden Key is turning 35 on Thursday, November 29, 2012! This year Golden Key HQ is celebrating our anniversary in a big way, and we want our chapters to join the celebration:
o Wear GK t-shirts on campus
o Wear your membership pin/charm
o Hang GK banner on campus
o Host an info table about GK
o Cake and ice cream social for members
o Place an ad in student newspaper
o Send Honorary Members a special note
o Host a service event
o Chalk the sidewalk
o Have an announcement made at a sporting event
o Share other creative ideas with your Associate Director!
Dr. Patrick Pranke will be our speaker for Far Away Places with Strange Sounding Names Series on October 18, 2012. He will be speaking about “Paths to Liberation in Burmese Buddhism.” Dr. Pranke is the assistant professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Humanities where he teaches Asian religions with a focus on Theravada Buddhism and Burma. He is a native of Minnesota and grew up in a farming family. He was influenced by stories of far away places and far away times and wanted to be an archaeologist. He attended schools in Forest Lake, Minnesota. After high school he attended the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin where he studied anthropology and South Asian Studies. Pranke received his doctorate in Buddhist Studies from the University of Michigan in 2004. He has conducted research and worked in Burma and northern India for a number of years and is affiliated with the Buddhist academy, Thitagu Kaba Buddha Takkathol, in Sagaing, Burma, where he has served as an instructor and translator. His research interests include Burmese Buddhist monastic history and historiography, Sangha-state relations, Buddhist scholasticism, and Burmese popular religion. His interests in north India include village Hinduism, pilgrimage and the geography of sacred sites. In the United States he examines immigrant Buddhism and the dynamics of integration. Pranke’s articles have appeared in Buddhism in Practice, the Encyclopedia of Buddhism, and the Journal of Burma Studies.
(Source: WKU Libraries Blog, Oct 3, 2012)
Please see Deadlines under Calendar for more important upcoming due dates!
For more information contact Ginny Hensley, Director of Alumni Programming, WKU Alumni Association, 888-WKU-ALUM, 270-745-4395 or ginny.hensley@wku.edu
“Red, White, and WKU” is the theme for 2012 Homecoming activities through Oct. 21. Here are links to more information about Homecoming activities, event parking/traffic, the WKU vs. Louisiana-Monroe football game (kickoff at 3 p.m. Oct. 20) and more:
To follow WKU Homecoming activities on Twitter, use #redwhitewku
Contact: Alumni Association, (270) 745-4395.
(Source: WKU News, Oct 17, 2012)
WKU recognized its top volunteers, alumni and alumni chapters Thursday night (Oct. 18) at the annual Summit Awards.
Distinguished Service Medals to recognize the service of the University’s top volunteers were presented to Dale Augenstein of Hilton Head, S.C., Dan Murph of Bowling Green and Mike Simpson of Bowling Green.
Dorris (D.B.) and Lula Burchett of Germantown, Tenn., were recognized as WKU’s Philanthropists of the Year.
Kelsey Richey of Bowling Green is the Young Alumnus of the Year and Sally Sadler Tisdale of Louisville is the Alumna of the Year.
“Power of One” honorees for the Hilltopper Athletic Foundation membership campaign were Bob Baysinger of Glasgow, Roy Gravil of Brownsville, Michael Wang of Lexington and Scott Crutcher of Bowling Green.
The Barren County, Central Kentucky, Greater Louisville, Heartland, Muhlenberg County, Music City, Northern Kentucky and Warren County alumni chapters were recognized as Spirit of Distinction Alumni Chapters for their efforts in organizing alumni events, community service projects, student recruitment and special events.
The Summit Awards were presented at the Knicely Conference Center at WKU’s South Campus as part of Homecoming activities.
University-wide volunteer of the year awards were presented to the following:
Contact: Amy Miller, (270) 745-4395.
(Source: WKU News, Oct 19, 2012)
Click on the picture or here!
A team representing the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Chinese government visited WKU this week for fieldwork and to discuss cooperative research under way to study atmospheric carbon dynamics.
Chris Groves explains details of groundwater monitoring equipment to Chinese scientists within WKU-owned Crumps Cave. (Photo by Jason Polk)
The group, which included scientists from UNESCO’s International Geoscience Program and the Chinese Geological Survey, visited sites at the WKU-owned Crumps Cave Educational Preserve and Lost River Cave. Research is under way there, with sister sites in China, to measure rates at which atmospheric CO2 is consumed by the dissolving of limestone in the world’s karst regions, which are areas like in south central Kentucky where caves, sinkholes and underground rivers are common. Rapidly changing atmospheric concentrations have been linked to increased rates of climate change, and so much work is underway to understand ways in which CO2 is being added to, or subtracted from, the atmosphere.
The pilot project, “Cooperative International Research in Measurement of the Global Atmospheric CO2 Sink from Carbonate Mineral Weathering,” is funded jointly by WKU’s Research & Creative Activities Program (RCAP) and China’s Institute of Karst Geology.
The project involves developing a standard operating procedure for measuring this consumption of atmospheric CO2, and the Lost River Cave site, along with a similar station near Guilin, China, will serve as the reference sites for an eventual global network of such stations.
The project is led on the U.S. side by University Distinguished Professor Chris Groves, Director of WKU’s Hoffman Environmental Research Institute and the Institute’s China Environmental Health Project (CEHP). The CEHP has been working cooperatively with Chinese scientists and students for 17 years to understand the hydrogeology, geochemistry and water resources of rural southwest China’s extensive karst region. In December, Groves will lead a group of six WKU scientists and students to China for lectures and fieldwork on the project. Nine graduate and undergraduate students are gaining experience by working on the effort, which is leveraged with related water-monitoring efforts funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and WKU’s Applied Research and Technology Program.
“We are very appreciative of the funding from WKU’s RCAP program to support this effort,” said Groves, “and feel this is a great expression of how the program should work. This is increasing our intellectual infrastructure with regard to equipment and training, is getting four WKU students to China, and should lead to significant external funding as the efforts expand globally.”
Geography and Geology Department Head David Keeling noted that “the Hoffman Institute has a long tradition of engaging students in research across the globe, and this project is another opportunity for WKU to expand its international reach by addressing an issue of critical importance to our global community.”
Contact: Chris Groves, (270) 745-5974.
(Source: WKU News, Oct 24, 2012)
(Source: Email from Robert Unseld, Oct 25, 2012)
For the 15th consecutive year, fall enrollment at WKU is up.
Total enrollment is 21,124, up 76 from fall 2011.
Brian Meredith, associate vice president for Enrollment Management, gave the report at the quarterly meeting of the University’s Board of Regents. WKU saw increases in the number of high school students taking dual credit courses (237), first-time students in the Honors College (137), African-American students (72), Hispanic students (63), non-resident alien students (115) and doctoral students (24).
Dr. Meredith said the profile of the freshman class remains strong with an average ACT score of 22 and high school grade-point average of 3.14.
In the Honors College, the average ACT score of the incoming class is 29 with the high school GPA is 3.85.
WKU President Gary Ransdell praised the work of several offices who helped students struggling with paying tuition stay enrolled.
“We dropped about 900 for non-payment and reinstated 336 after working with them,” Dr. Ransdell said. “In the past we would have lost all of them. This salvaged their academic careers.”
Dr. Meredith said they met with many of the students individually to work out payment options. “That’s no small feat,” he said.
Working with regional school systems to provide dual credit courses “helps engage students in college-level coursework,” Dr. Meredith said. “The outreach strengthens our relationship with the regional schools who work with us to develop the appropriate courses.”
Enrollment at the end of Thursday will be reported to the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education as the University’s official enrollment.
In other business, the Board:
Contact: Brian Meredith, (270) 745-6169.
(Source: WKU News, Oct 26, 2012, highlights added)
On Monday, Oct 29 at 7:00 pm in Mass Media and Technology Hall auditorium, please join Western Kentucky University’s School of Journalism and Broadcasting and Canon Explorers of Light to meet with some of the producers of the 2012 documentary Emmy winning A Game of Honor.
Producers/filmmakers Amina Moreau and Joyce Tsang will be leading the presentation by screening the CBS Sports/SHOWTIME production followed by a lively behind the scenes discussion and Q&A on how the film was shot and edited in just one fall season.
A Game of Honor captures a never-before-seen look at the incomparable Division I football programs at The U.S. Military Academy at West Point and The U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. The Cadets and Midshipmen endure a much different athletic experience than any other football program in the nation. The documentary reveals the dedication, discipline and determination required to make the journey from military training, to an elite classroom education, and onto the football field.
Being their first feature length documentary A Game of Honor follows the lives of both the Army and Navy for an entire season. While the story builds and follows a football season, with over a 100 shoot days logged, the characters and narrative are so much more than just football.
The SHOWTIME and CBS Sports collaboration on the epic Army-Navy documentary was nominated for 8 Emmy’s and took home three wins. The feature length film won Outstanding SPORTS DOCUMENTARY; Outstanding SPORTS PROMOTIONAL ANNOUNCEMENT – EPISODIC; and Outstanding NEW APPROACHES SPORTS PROGRAMMING with CBSSports.com. The New Approach Emmy win was for the collaborative effort between SHOWTIME and CBSSports.com on the A Game of Honor multi-part web series.
You can view the trailer here (http://sports.sho.com/videos/717) and browse the web distribution of the story here (http://sports.sho.com/programs/a-game-of-honor).
Tim Broekema
Associate Professor, WKU Photojournalism
1906 College Heights Blvd #11070
Bowling Green, KY 42101
270.745.3005
(Source: Email from Tim Broekema, Oct 28, 2012)
WKU’s Street View footage can be accessed at http://goo.gl/maps/Wcit2
WKU’s partnership with the Google Street View Program saw a major development today (Oct. 30) with Google’s release of comprehensive 360-degree imagery of WKU’s Bowling Green campus.
The release comes as part of a major upgrade to Google’s Street View program worldwide, which has recently expanded to include college and university campuses. WKU embarked on the partner program in the summer of 2012 when two ground crews from Google visited campus for a week to collect exterior 360-degree images of campus from the street-level view.
“We wanted to give visitors to our website a bird’s-eye view of campus and Google’s Street View technology was a perfect fit,” Corie Martin, manager of Creative Web Services for the WKU division of Public Affairs, said.
One Google Street View crew used a special camera-mounted vehicle to drive the perimeter of campus while a special camera-mounted tricycle traversed every accessible sidewalk and surface in the interior of campus so that site visitors could feel as though they too were standing on WKU’s campus.
“This is a great tool for alumni, campus visitors and international students who might not otherwise have a chance to come to campus. We are pleased to show the world the advancements and growth WKU has experienced in this forum,” Martin said.
Contact: webservices@wku.edu
(Source: WKU News, Oct 30, 2012)
