Walkin'

This past weekend was one for walking. On Saturday we held the annual Harry Wiggins Trolley Walk in honor of this generous RU alumnus in an effort to raise funds for two scholarships. I walked alongside nearly all of our fraternity and sorority members, as this was also the kick-off to Greek Week on campus. It was a perfect day for it and we enjoyed the opportunity to get together for this cause. Then on Sunday I attended the annual EarthWalk for Earth Day at Theis Park (a lovely site across from the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum and bordering Brush Creek). Because I thought that driving to the EarthWalk would defeat its purpose, I decided to walk to the walk. Including the walk back, this made for a trek that measured right around 6.5 miles. Fortunately, it turned out to be another beautiful spring day in KC so it didn't feel at all like work. I also saw several RU students (one of whom also walked to the walk!) and walked with the other representatives from the Kansas City Wildlands team (including Sam "Wildthing" Lehrbaum, a 5-month-old border collie/St. Bernard mix). Our team raised a substantial amount of money for Bridging the Gap, our wonderful local environmental not-for-profit agency. It was a great weekend, and it was said that I earned my surname!

Evo Blogs

Please check out my Evolution class' latest blog entries below! They have done a fantastic job of relating their service-learning projects to class material (their textbook is pictured above) and peer-reviewed literature.

Event tomorrow night!

Tomorrow night at 7:00 at the Writer's Place (3607 Pennsylvania Ave in Kansas City, MO), one of our own professors, Xanath Caraza, will be reading some of her original works! She is one of the many outstanding members of our Foreign Languages Department and she provides such a rich element of language and literature for the Rockhurst and local communities. Please join us tomorrow night to show your support for Professor Caraza!

Un-BELIZE-able pictures

To see all of Dave's pictures of our Belize trip, as well as pic's of the other service trips and centennial events, click here!

Un-BELIZE-able!

That was the theme for our alternative spring break service trip to Belize last week. It was truly incredible: the people, the wildlife, the landscape, the service, and especially our phenomenal RU students. Our charge was to prepare and lay the cement foundation for a chapel in Dolores, a small Mayan village of about 450 people in SW Belize. The Rockhurst group (Fr. Gregg Grovenberg, Dave von Fintel, myself and 17 fantastic students) and the local people worked together like pro's, even in extreme heat and intense sun, to meet our objective. We met lots of wonderful people along the way and were made to feel at home by our hosts and the villagers. The group is pictured here, fresh off the plane in Belize City, still clean and happy. Though we didn't exactly stay clean for the entirety of the trip, we most certainly did remain happy and positive the whole week. I am so proud of our group for their optimism and inspiration, their hard work, and their ability to go with the flow (this is a particularly invaluable skill in Central America!). We look forward to sharing more of our experiences with the RU community and thereby keeping our time in Belize alive within our hearts and minds.

Honors Blogs

Two of my fantastic Evolution students this semester are members of the Honors Program at Rockhurst, and have decided to conduct an Honors Option in my class. One of them, Caitlin, has chosen to explore the evolution of sex and sexual selection in humans while the other, Melissa, will be investigating the Intelligent Design/Creationism movement and its proponents' thoughts on evolution. [The book cover shown is that of a book discussing the Dover, Pennsylvania, decision about teaching Intelligent Design in the Science classroom.] Each of them is maintaining a blog (linked below under Evolution Service Learning Projects), to which they add entries concerning their research each week. They are off to a great start, so please check them out! While you're clicking on links under that heading, please also look at the Evolution groups' service-learning blogs. They have recently conducted and posted their interviews of experts on their chosen research topic and they are quite interesting and informative.

Rockhurst Centennial

Yesterday Dr. Wills and I took a short break and walked over to Massman to attend the kick-off of the Rockhurst University Centennial celebration. We each bought t-shirts (pictured) and talked with the students and faculty who were there. This is an exciting time for our campus! Please check out the RU Centennial page celebrating our first 100 years.