Here’s a list of the top five, last-minute items you’ll probably need in your dorm room. Everything can be found at Bed, Bath and Beyond, so it’s one-stop shopping to a killer year.
Town of Elon Police Chief Cliff Parker took a deep breath, slouched back into his leather-padded desk chair and stared off into the distance.
Class of 2020: If you haven’t declared it already, you’re likely preparing to call Elon your “new home.” And it’s true — this is your new home. But it stretches far beyond your new lofted bed. When you call this community your home, think about everything you’re embracing. All of it.
I’ve been staring at this document for days trying to figure out what wisdom I can share in this column, trying to remember what I needed to hear as an incoming first-year.
When I first toured Elon University, it seemed like the perfect school. When I arrived here, it almost was. I loved the small class sizes. I had fantastic professors. I enjoyed the courses that I took. I felt like I was growing as a student. I became involved in InterVarsity, so my spiritual needs were provided for. To top it all off, the campus was beautiful. But despite all of the wonderful things Elon offered, I wanted to transfer a month or two into my freshman year. I’m a first-generation Filipino-American, and I didn’t feel like my ethnic identity was welcomed or supported on Elon’s campus.
Oh behalf of the Chaplains — Father Gerry, Rabbi Meir, Chaplain Joel, Muslim Coordinator Shane Atkinson, and myself, Chaplain Jan — I want to welcome you! It is a joy to have the campus teeming again with happy and energetic students. Our presence on campus means that Elon cares about your spiritual self, and your whole self. Our mission, in the Truitt Center, is to provide you resources to explore, consider and deepen your religious or spiritual commitment. We also offer you opportunities to understand and interact with those who follow different paths. And we provide events and moments to support religious and non-religious students to think together and learn from each other.
As we welcome our LGBTQIA and ally students, faculty, and staff back to campus, we must also take time to reflect upon the national conversations surrounding LGBTQIA events, tragedies, and victories.
Move-in weekend is a blur of packing too many boxes in cars that seem too small and hoping it all makes it into a dorm room in one piece. Between move-in traffic and hordes of families in residence halls, freshman find themselves falling abruptly into this new part of their lives, rather than entering it gracefully. Instead of getting lost in the impending chaos that is move-in weekend, freshman football players enjoyed moving into their summer residences with their fellow teammates on June 12 for the football “bridge” program. The early move offers many advantages to the new additions, easing their college transition and acclimation to campus life.
Growing up in Haiti as the third of four brothers and the first to graduate high school, Ellison Adrien wasn't the subject of high expectations from neighbors — especially after his parents passed away in March 2008. But his expectations for himself were high. Adrien would skip classes his junior year of high school to work in the Dominican Republic in order pay rent. But he was still one of the best students in his classes and was hopeful an opportunity for higher education would appear.
The Elon Phoenix basketball and volleyball teams have called Alumni Gym home for decades, but plans for a new convocation center could put them in a state-of-the-art on-campus arena as early as fall 2018. The university’s athletic department has announced preliminary plans for the arena, outlining the $20 million fundraising goal that would be needed to finalize the project. The new facility would be named the Schar Center, after Dwight and Martha Schar P’16 and P’19, who gave $12 million to the university in 2012. Part of their donation funded the construction of a new building for the School of Communications, Schar Hall. “The university has had a long-standing need for a large gathering space that would support major events," said Gerald Whittington, Senior Vice President for Business, Finance and Technology. Whittington added that the new building would put Elon on par with other athletic facilities in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA).
As Elon University expands in resources and recognition, so, too, has the crop of wide-eyed first-year students enrolling into the medium-sized private institution. This week, Elon will welcome a trailblazing Class of 2020 group, one Greg Zaiser, vice president of Admissions and Financial Planning, characterized as the “largest and most diverse [class] in Elon history.” Spearheaded by 10,098 applications and a 60% acceptance rate, this year’s freshman class edges out the Class of 2019’s metrics in almost every category.
If your first experience at Elon is one riddled with anxiety and uncertainty like mine, perhaps you don’t bELONg. And that’s okay. The challenge is to find where you do belong. The result may surprise you.
Five vehicles parked outside apartments near campus were broken into recently, according to an email from Vice President of Student Life Smith Jackson.
Smith Jackson will step down from serving as Vice President of Student Life and Dean of Students at Elon University at the conclusion of 2016-2017 school year, President Leo Lambert announced during an address to faculty and staff Aug. 22. According to The Office of Student Life, Jackson’s career in higher education has spanned more than 30 years. Jackson was born in Dothan, Alabama, and received his undergraduate degree in psychology and a master’s degree in counseling from the University of Alabama before earning his doctorate at Auburn University in counselor education.
Starting college is a fresh start, a clean slate, a blank canvass — but on your first day, you realize that the canvass given to you isn’t blank at all.
The Elon University women's basketball team is safe and en route back to North Carolina after feeling the aftershocks of a 6.2-magnitude earthquake in central Italy.
Continuing the effort toward increased campus inclusivity, the Elon University Gender and LGBTQIA Center (GLC) has hired Camilla Brewer, a full-year graduate assistant to join Matthew Antonio Bosch, the center’s director. “I am extra support, another resource in the office,” Brewer said. “I am kind of here to do whatever Matthew needs me to do.” Brewer was put in touch with Bosch through a professor at University of North Carolina at Greensboro after hearing about the job opening. As part of her graduate program, all students are required to have assistantships and work about half-time at a university. When the position opened at Elon, she jumped at the opportunity.
Campus Pride, one of the nation’s largest advocacy groups for college lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students and faculty, recently named Elon University in its top 10 rankings for policies, practices and programs for LGBTQIA community, according to a recent E-Net article. The Aug. 22 ranking marks the second time Elon was among the Top 25 institutions in the seven years Campus Pride has categorized universities for their LGBTQIA-friendly environments. Elon was also ranked the No.1 University in the South for Campus Pride’s list, earning five out of five stars.
Over the past several years, Jewish Life at Elon University has grown, bringing with it increased interest and support for the Jewish population. To create new and grow existing programs at Elon Hillel, Jessica Waldman will be joining as the new Director of Jewish Life.
GRAHAM -- Sheriff Terry Johnson and the Alamance County Sheriff's Office held a news conference Friday to speak publicly about the settlement reached that led the Department of Justice to drop its lawsuit against the Office. Almost a year ago, Federal Judge Thomas Schroeder released a 253-page document dismissing the federal lawsuit against the department, which the DOJ initially appealed. "It feels like a million pounds has been lifted off me, it has restored my faith," Johnson said. The lawsuit began in December of 2012 Sheriff Johnson and his office were accused of racially profiling and targeting Latinos since 2007.
