Finally, a few pics from the AJCU Honors Conference

As promised, I am finally posting some pictures from the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities Honors Conference we hosted at Rockhurst during the first weekend of April. The top picture shows our Advising in Honors Panel (L to R: Dr. Bill Sturgill (RU), Rob Hamilton (RU), and Dr. David Sorensen (St. Joseph's University)), and the bottom pic is of the group at lunch in the Massman Gallery (front table: Jazz Giacchetti (Santa Clara University), Dr. Bill Sturgill (RU) and Madiha Aslam (RU)).

Since Belize

A lot has happened since returning from Belize! This past weekend my colleagues and I hosted the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities Honors Conference at Rockhurst. I am still recovering and have yet to upload the pictures, so more about that later. But a few weeks ago I was invited to help kindergarten-age Girl Scouts earn a badge centered around animal appreciation, so Monty (my ball python, pictured) and I were thrilled to spend the morning with them. We also had a successful Honors Program Student Induction the following day, where first-year Honors students were officially welcomed into the program over brunch with their families and Honors faculty. Dr. Jason Arthur gave an intriguing and thought-provoking keynote speech, and the Honors Student Association President, Ms. Kaela Severa, emceed the event.
And on top of everything, our Festival of Student Achievement is this week, so our entire campus community will have the chance to see firsthand the products of student research and creative efforts at poster sessions (all week on the first floor of the Science Center), and performances and an art opening at the Greenlease Gallery Friday evening.
Also, it's Royals season!!! I had the pleasure of watching some of the home opener and hope to go to several games this year. It's an exciting time!

Had to add a few more Belize pic's

The first is of the entire work crew in Dolores; and the second is of Israel and Milton, two of our favorite kiddos.

Belize service trip

Over spring break last week, Dr. Pete Bicak and I accompanied a group of 10 outstanding RU students to southern Belize for a service trip. While there, we met some kind and fascinating people, including villagers in the Mayan communities of Dolores and Laguna, as well as our wonderful and welcoming hosts in Punta Gorda and Belize City. Our work chiefly involved helping the villagers finish building the Catholic church in Dolores, construction of which began in January of 2010. We also served as volunteers and even substitute teachers in the village's school, where we became very close to many of the Mayan children. We also had the good fortune of meeting Vicente, who took us on a guided jungle walk and a tour of Laguna, where we got to meet Kevin (above - so cute!) and share a meal with him and his family. We even got the chance to visit and learn about the Lubaantun Mayan ruins (pictured). The twelve of us worked incredibly well together and it was such a pleasure to spend a week with these amazing people. The work was difficult, but leaving Belize and leaving one another was even harder. It's been a challenge to reintegrate since we've been back, and I find myself really missing our group and the people we met.

CALHE

This weekend three fantastic students accompanied me to the Conference on Applied Learning in Higher Education at Missouri Western State University, where we gave a presentation about the Hogan/Rockhurst Diversity Institute from last summer. During this institute, these and other RU students mentored urban High School students from Hogan Prep. The HS students spent one week on our campus taking college classes in science, math and philosophy and living like college students. They took what they learned and in turn prepared and implemented an activity with middle school students from Brookside Frontier Math and Science School. We referred to this series of mentorships, from RU faculty to RU students to Hogan Prep students to BFMASS students, as a cascade of service-learning. Our design, implementation and observations were presented by me and two of the students at the conference this weekend. We also had the opportunity to hear lots of other interesting talks, including the keynote speaker, Dr. Joel Shenker, pictured here.

Honors Lecture Series

Last night we had our most recent installment of the Honors Program's Professor-Scholar Lecture Series, starring our very own Dr. Elizabeth Evans (DVM) and her hedgehog, Peaty. We had a record turnout (around 55 students - I'm sure the pizza and pop helped) and everyone learned a lot about welfare in animal research, about the contributions of such studies to science and medicine, and about hedgehogs! Dr. Evans is a fantastic resource for our students who are interested in Veterinary Medicine, animal behavior, lab animal work, and a plethora of other animal-related topics. So please feel free to stop by the Biology Department anytime to see us, our fish, my snakes, and Peaty the hedgehog! (image from treehugger.com)

The New Evolution Class Blogs are up!

My Evolution class has now completed their first blog posts for their grid-computing service-learning projects! To learn more, please check out their links at the bottom of this page.