Students, faculty, staff and alumni at Centenary learn, teach and serve with inventive spirit. Together, we draw upon our distinctive experiences in order to nurture incoming students as they too discover, create, and transform selves and community.
Read here what some of our folks are up to now; look back through these pages to see where enterprising folks have led us recently.
Imagine what you might add to this list.
Holi Paint Event at Jones-Rice Field
On Wednesday, April 23, the International Society for Cultural Awareness helped Centenary students release some pent up stress by throwing paint at each other to celebrate Holi, the Hindu festival of color. View the slideshow below:
If you don't have Flash (or if you like bigger photos), try the larger format slideshow.
Rachel Powell Wins Two Major Paper Awards
When Centenary senior Rachel Powell "took off" a semester to go on the Soulforce Equality Ride in 2006, she was only just beginning to work on her sociology degree. Nevertheless, she used the experience to do the fieldwork research for an award winning paper on social movements, "Sustaining Group Members: A Case Study in Social Movement Organizations."
Rachel speaks about researching and writing the paper, as well as how it felt to win.
Working closely with sociology professor Dr. Michelle Wolkomir, Rachel built upon her research during the ride to examine more generic questions about the ways in which social movement organizations use narrative strategies to attract and retain members, as well as how such narratives must be adjusted through time to sustain organizational momentum.
Rachel's original research has been honored with two awards in 2008, one regional and one international:
- Odum Award for best undergraduate paper from the Southern Sociological Society
- Winner of the 2008 Undergraduate Student Paper Competition from Alpha Kappa Delta, the International Sociology Honor Society
As part of her wins, Rachel will travel to academic conferences in both Richmond and Boston in the spring and summer of 2008 to present her paper and receive her awards.
The Odum Award has been won by two other Centenary students in the recent past: Diya Surie in 2006, and Harmony Newman in 2003.
Neuroscience Students Show Brains to Kids
During Brain Awareness Week 2008 (March 10th-14th), Dr. Greg Butcher’s Introduction to Neuroscience class was given the assignment of inventing hands-on activities to teach Hillsdale Elementary students something about the brain. In addition to learning the concepts themselves, Centenary students were faced with the challenge of conveying the information to an audience of fourth-graders, posing questions like:
- Are you right- or left-brained?
- How fast can you react to catch a falling object?
- How do you build a brain cell?
Activities also included a lesson in neuroanatomy using a real human brain, a test of mental flexibility, and a game that illustrated how neurons (brain cells) communicate.
The presentations were a roaring success. Rebekah Lewis, a Hillsdale Elementary Teacher had this to say to our students:
Thank you so much for coming to our classroom! You can't know, but my kids are the "talk of the town" this week...they are so popular! I have parents calling, other teachers coming to my room, students dropping by to see if there were any brains hanging out, waiting to be held. The best thing, though, is that I get to hear my kids EXPLAINING to other kids what they learned! I love it. –
Find out more about the the Centenary College Neuroscience Program.