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I N S I D E F U R M A Nwinter 2014

Milestones -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-. 2

Profile: Tom Saccenti .-.-.-.-. 3

Faculty News .-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- 4–5

New Faculty -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-. 6

Profile: Steve Watson -.-.-.-. 7

Around Campus .-.-.-.-.-.-.-. 8

Kelly’s Korner -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-. 9

Forum -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-. 10

Taking on Greenville’s food deserts

(continued on page 6)

Imagine that you live in a neigh- borhood with no supermarket. There are no produce stands,

only convenience stores and fast food restaurants.

And your transportation options are limited.

How would you get fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthy foods? This situation and question faces many residents in Greenville County.

Since 2010 Furman Health Sciences Professor Alicia Powers, Ph.D., has led an ongoing project to identify and map all areas in the county that lack availability of healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate foods—areas known by health experts as food deserts.

Her goal is to help replace these food deserts with food oases to promote healthier eating and living.

“The important aspect of this research is that it is intersecting with a real issue to promote positive change in the community,” said Dr. Powers.

She began her project by helping to conduct community health assessments in the Sterling, Nicholtown, and Berea communities, as part of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant.

“But the idea expanded to the entire county as interest in improving the local food system grew,” Dr. Powers said.

Part of the study, utilizing 20 Furman students, was to determine the location of all food establishments—including supermarkets, convenience stores, and all types of restaurants—then personally visit and survey more than 1,000 of them to see what kinds of food they offered, and at what price and quality.

“In order to know what to change, we had to know to what extent food deserts existed in Greenville County,” Dr. Powers said.

“So we’re trying to give people, who might not otherwise have it, the opportunity to have a healthy lifestyle,” said Furman senior Lexie Lipham, a health sciences major and researcher.

Once the research is completed, Dr. Powers said she intends to work with local food help agencies to reduce the county’s food deserts.

“We won’t have the data ready until spring 2014,” she said. “But once we identify and map where the food deserts are, we can form partnerships to combat the issue.”

Since the early 1990s, when the term food deserts was introduced in the United Kingdom, this issue has been fought in many American cities.

Mari Gallagher, national food deserts expert and Principal of Mari Gallagher Research & Consulting Group in Chicago, Ill., said the issue has grown in lower-income and minority communities.

“We’re conservatively projecting that about 10 percent of the U.S. population, roughly 31 million people, are living in a food desert,” Gallagher said. “It’s a very, very serious problem in all 50 states, in rural and urban areas.”

Gallagher further cited in a 2011 article for National Public Radio that she knew of no U.S. city that has “eradicated food deserts.”

Powers and several Upstate allies are preparing for a long !ght and could help Greenville could become the !rst.

For example, Reece Lyerly, an original Furman research student in the food deserts study, began a partnering network of community gardens in 2011 called Gardening for Good.

“We now have 80 community gardens,” Lyerly said “And Dr. Powers’s project was a main reason I stayed in Greenville after graduation—to help see it through as a true culture shift in this community.”

Dan Weidenbenner, a 2012 Furman graduate, started another venture that same year called Mill Village Farms to establish fruit and vegetable farms in food desert neighborhoods.

“We have three local farms and are developing a fourth,” Weiden-benner said. “And next year, through aquaponics (growing food in water), we plan to deliver fresh fruit and vegetables year-round to the local food deserts.”

And Loaves & Fishes, a local mobile food rescue organization, has teamed

In their research, students found that many local residents had to rely mostly on snacks, fried and other fatty foods from neighborhood convenience stores or fast food stops, often with no fresh vegetables or fruit.

As a result, Dr. Powers said, health-related issues such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and cardio-vascular disease are likely to be more prevalent in these Food Desert communities.

BFM surpasses goalThe Because Furman Matters

comprehensive fundraising campaign successfully concluded December 31 by raising more than $404 million in gifts and commitments, surpassing the $400 million goal.

More than 60 percent of the commitments have been made to the university’s endowment to support academic scholarships, programs, and professorships. Capital support for projects such as the Townes Science Center, the Herring Center for Continuing Education, the Pearce-Horton Football complex, and the Trone Student Center renovations, among others, represented about 17 percent, and 21 percent has come from commitments to the annual fund.

The quiet phase of the campaign opened in 2004, and in 2007, Because Furman Matters launched publicly with $225 million in commitments.

A special edition of Furman Magazine, to be published in February, will be dedicated to the campaign and will include articles highlighting its broad achievements through stories of impacted students, faculty, and donors. The magazine will also include !nancial reports outlining the sources, size, and projects supported by gifts to BFM.

In the coming weeks a series of articles describing the ways the campaign has changed lives, improved opportunities, and supported programs will be posted on Edge and the Furman homepage. On May 17, the university will host its annual gala, Night of the Stars, to celebrate the donors who helped make Because Furman Matters a success.

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M I L E S T O N E SNew employees

Brenda Arnold ..........................................Custodial

Erika Tomayo ............................................Custodial

Pierre Curtis ..............................................Athletics

Taylor De Lench ....... Marketing and Public Relations

Caitlin Faikes ......... Information Technology Services

Philip Gregory ...........................................Athletics

Lynne Huff ....................................................Music

Tyler Parmelee .............................. Academic Affairs

Katherine Sloan ............................................Library

Karen Turbeville ........................... Academic Affairs

Anniversaries

25 yearsDanny Lamb .............................................Custodial

20 yearsAnn Bryant ...................................................Library

Bernie Stanton ............................. Facilities Services

Anne Smith ........................................Financial Aid

15 yearsWade Shepherd ..... Information Technology Services

Maggie Milat ................................ Academic Affairs

Cathy Frazier ......... Information Technology Services

Keith Faust ................................... Facilities Services

Annie Queen ............................... Facilities Services

10 yearsMaryLou Merk .............. Finance and Administration

Wendy Bremer ............................................ English

David Tedrow ................................ University Police

Gail McDiarmid ....................................... Sociology

Marian Woods ............................University Housing

5 yearsHelen Reynolds ......................Continuing Education

Sherry Jordan ...........................................Custodial

Fred Miller ............. Information Technology Services

Brandon Barrierau ........................ Facilities Services

Fanny Arias ..............................................Custodial

Sydney Wood ............................... Academic Affairs

Brad Pochard .........................................Admissions

Courtenay Nantz ................................Riley Institute

Kala Kennemore ......................... Computer Science

Laura Baines ................................................Library

Few private liberal arts colleges offer business degree programs. Even fewer incorporate a rigorous MBA-like experience in those undergraduate disciplines.

Furman does both. “The Block,”meshes the fundamental elements of

management—accounting, !nance, marketing and operations into a single four-course experience for junior business majors.

Meeting 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. !ve days a week, the Block exposes students to the core of business as a seamless, interconnected unit Team taught by four professors, it helps students identify and solve complex management problems, hones business acumen, fosters unity and gives students a profound understanding of the inner workings of a successful business.

“In the Block, we essentially take students out of college for a semester and throw them into the real world,” says !nance professor Katie Player who teaches the course with Kirk Karwan, Suzy Summers, and Robert Underwood.

The group, normally around 30 students, also visits successful manufacturers and other !rms, interviews business leaders and attends seminars on networking, interviewing, resume writing, social media, and leadership.

In true liberal arts fashion, the professors also weave in subjects including ethics, leadership, globalization, and sustainability. Susan Zeiger (Internship Programs), John Barker (Career Services), Kim Keefer (Shucker Leadership Program), and Peggy Batchelor (Computer Science) are honorary faculty who lead classes throughout the semester. Faculty say students emerge from the program with a broader understanding of how businesses work, a solid set of business skills, and a keen awareness of their natural abilities.

“The issues facing practicing managers are rarely con!ned to one functional area of business,” says Karwan. “We believe an integrative, interdisciplinary view of management is essential to effective decision making.”

The approach was instituted in 2010, in part, to help improve internship prospects for majors entering their senior year.

“Before the Block, students wouldn’t have a good grasp of the core of business or a mastery of business parlance until just before they left the university,” says Karwan. “With the Block, students are equipped earlier in their academic careers so they can take advantage of internships and study away assignments following their junior year.”

Amanda Soule ’14 interned with BMW last summer and says the Block boosted her recruiting IQ. “Without understanding operations and supply chains, marketing and human resources, BMW might have been out of reach for me.”

Tackling group projects, taking group tours, and spending countless hours together, Block participants also develop an esprit de corps. They learn to trust and depend on each other.

“It’s 30 students working together toward a goal,” says Underwood. “The importance of the bonding and the team approach in the Block can’t be overstated.”

This sense of community is played out in a semester-long project where students work in groups of !ve to dissect and evaluate a company. Says Player, “They learn delegation skills and how to apply their strengths in a group setting.”

In just three years, Underwood says the Block has become a symbol of what makes a Furman education distinctive. It is a blend of liberal and experiential—hands-on learning that prepares majors for the challenges of graduate school or the job market.

“It’s unlike any other class students will encounter,” says Underwood. “Besides the value it imparts to students, the Block represents something unique for the department that sets us apart from other undergraduate liberal arts institutions and even some business schools.”

— Tina Underwood

Meet the BlockersIntegrative business core (The Block) knits disciplines together, and a whole lot more

“It’s 30 students working together toward a goal. The importance of the bonding and the team approach in the Block can’t be overstated.”

– Bob Underwood

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In 2000, Betsy Beymer-Farris, Ph.D., !rst set foot on the fertile plains of the Serengeti, a vast Afri-can plain in Tanzania renowned for its abundant

wildlife. Then an undergraduate student, she was intent on using the experience to become a wildlife biologist.

But when she arrived Beymer-Farris discovered an interesting dynamic that led her down a different career path.

There in the savanna grasslands a struggle was taking place pitting well-meaning conservationists and the Maasai, a largely nomadic group that had long lived off the land.

As the governments of Kenya and Tanzania passed laws to limit access and land use, they were threatening the culture of the Maasai, a group who have lived in harmony with the environment for centuries and long resisted government entreaties to embrace a sedentary lifestyle.

The struggle fascinated Beymer-Farris so much that she refocused her academic attention to sustainability science—an emerging academic discipline seeking to bridge the divide between the social and the natural sciences in order to theorize and understand complex environmental issues.

Today, she is helping to build the major at Furman while returning to coastal Tanzania during the summer with students to research and monitor the plight of local villagers experiencing similar impacts as the Masaai.

Earlier this year, Beymer-Farris and her small research team, which includes partnering faculty in Norway and Tanzania, secured a $3.2 million grant from a Norwegian donor agency to continue their work.

“Furman was the !rst school in the country to offer a sustainability science major at the undergraduate level in 2011,” said Beymer-Farris, who joined Furman after completing her Ph.D. in Geography at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “And since I was interested in helping to create a university program, I thought this major would be perfect.”

Beymer-Farris teaches classroom Principles of Sustainability Science, Social Systems and Resilience and Adaptation, part of Furman’s Earth and Environmental Sciences Department. She focuses students on the integration of ecology with environmental politics and global economic development, and their potential to handle

Growing a program from the ground upFurman professor opens undergrads to new world in Tanzania

“some of the problems we’re facing,” such as water scarcity and sanitation, pollution and waste management, and natural resource access, control, and management.

Beymer-Farris, who speaks "uent native Swahili, makes arrangements for each student to lodge in a thatched-roof hut with a Tanzanian family. They eat what the family eats, sleep on "oor beds, and live with no running water, no electricity, and no English.

After earning the local villagers’ trust, students interview and document how growing restrictions on land use has changed their culture. Conversely, some students work within the national marine parks. They question park managers and document how conservation is helping to preserve the abundant marine and coastal biodiversity there, which includes dolphins, whale sharks, and sea turtles.

“During my research, I spent part of my time with a local farmer clearing weeds in !elds with a garden hoe, and cutting brush with a machete so the soil nutrition would get to the crops,” said George Flowers, 22, the program’s !rst graduate in 2012. “But I never wanted to pack up and come home.”

As a bonus Beymer-Farris notes that students also observe the endless marine and wildlife, such as lions, hippos, and whale sharks, in a natural setting, and see a country that is “stunningly beautiful.”

“The undergrads are essentially like masters-degree students in the !eld,” Beymer-Farris said. “They do their own research and !eld work, and I have two students this year who I’m working with for publication in academic journals.”

The grant will fund !ve additional years of !eld research. As land use restrictions have grown in recent decades, so has the tension between the local villagers like the Maasai and the government. Beymer-Farris hopes her !ndings will encourage the groups to work to !nd a delicate balance that will preserve both the land and a way of life.

— Clark Leech

John Worsham attempts to climb a coconut tree under the

watch of !eld guide Abdullah Saidi. Worsham was one of four

undergraduates in Furman’s Sustainability Science program

to accompany Dr. Betsy Beymer-Farris to Tanzania in the summer

of 2013 for !eld research.

—Photo by Suresh Muthukrishnan Ph.D.

Dr. Betsy Beymer-Farris meets with Maasai Village Chairmen near the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in northern Tanzania

to discuss the impacts of conservation in Tanzania. —Photo by Suresh Muthukrishnan Ph.D.

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EnglishMichele Speitz served as invited special session speaker at the 21st Annual North American Society for the Study of Romanticism Conference, sponsored by Boston University and The College of the Holy Cross. An expanded version of her talk, “Formal Remainders: Wordsworth, Brevity, and Being Cut Short” is forthcoming from the Romantic Circles Praxis Series.

HistoryErik Ching, along with co-author Hector Lindo of Fordham University, won the 2013 Alfred B. Thomas Book Award from the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies (SECOLAS) for their book, Modernizing Minds in El Salvador: Education Reform and the Cold War, 1960-1980, University of New Mexico Press. The award is given “for the best book on a Latin American subject published by a SECOLAS member in the previous year.” Lane J. Harris gave an invited talk entitled “Asia’s First Republic: The Birth and Development of the Modern Chinese State” at the University of Arkansas in October. Harris also has an article “From Democracy to Bureaucracy: The Baojia in Nationalist Thought and Practice, 1927–1949” appearing in Frontiers of History in China.Diane Vecchio published “From Slavery to Freedom: African American Life in Post-Civil War Spartanburg,” in Recovering the Piedmont Past: Unexplored Moments in Nineteenth Century Upcountry South Carolina History, University of South Carolina Press.

ArtMarie Watkins served as panel moderator of the session “New Views of the West” at the 25th annual Southwest Art History Conference, in Taos, New Mexico, in October.

Asian StudiesKate Kaup served as invited speaker at Colby College’s China Town Hall, sponsored by the National Committee on United States-China Relations in October. The presentation was titled “Violence in Tibet and Xinjiang: Is There A Way Out for the Chinese Government?”

systems case, “Bellwether Garden Supply: Revising Purchase and Disbursement Processes and Controls in the Implementation of a New Accounting Application.” At the AIS Educators’ Association Annual Meeting in July, Daniel Smith ’13 and Michael MacGuidwin ’13, received the Jack and Maye Stewart Student Project Competition award in recognition of, “outstanding work by students on accounting information systems class projects and cases.” At the conference, McHugh presented the related class project and his students’ analysis. Jeanine Stratton co-presented research posters with Blake Williams ’14, on retailer advertising strategies, and John Kiser ’14, and Haley Jones ’14, on “greenwashing” prevalence rates at the Florida Association for Behavior Analysis in Daytona Beach. Stratton served as a guest grant reviewer for the National Science Foundation. Stratton was nominated by the Shi Center to attend the Feeding the Planet Summit in Washington, D.C., with Glen Halva-Neubauer (PS) and eight students. Stratton is also the recipient of the Duke Endowment Food Systems research fund for 2013–2014.

CTLDiane Boyd, along with Josie Baudier and Traci Stromie of Kennesaw State University, presented “Flipping the Mindset: Re-framing Fear and Failure as Development Catalysts” as this year’s Anchor Session at the Professional and Organizational Development network international meeting in Pittsburgh in November.

Communication StudiesBrandon Inabinet presented at two conferences in Europe; in Germany on “Rhetoric in Europe,” regarding his research on the ethical theories of Chaïm Perelman, and in the Netherlands and Belgium on “Weapons of Mass Seduction,” regarding the circulation of capitalist and anti-capitalist discourse in the early U.S. Inabinet’s fall publications include a book review in Rhetoric Society Quarterly and a short essay in the international journal, Controversia.

Earth and Environmental SciencesBetsy Beymer-Farris was an invited speaker for Clemson University’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Biology Annual Seminar Series in September. Beymer-Farris published a chapter titled “Producing Biodiversity in Tanzania’s Mangrove Forests? A Combined Political Ecology and Ecological Resilience Approach to Sustainably Utilized Landscapes” in an edited volume: Land Change Science, Political Ecology, and Sustainability: Synergies and Divergences (Routledge 2013). Weston Dripps, Brannon Andersen, and Brad Harmon presented a poster “Furman University’s Sustainability Living Learning Communities” at the annual Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) national conference in Nashville in October. Weston Dripps, Greg Lewis, Brannon Andersen, and Rachel Baxter ’13, recently published a peer reviewed original article “Hydrogeochemical Characterization of Headwater Seepages Inhabited by the Endangered Bunched Arrowhead (Sagittaria fasciculata) in the Upper Piedmont of South Carolina” in the journal Southeastern Naturalist.

of Teachers of English named Thomas Council Historian (2013–2015) and awarded him the 2013 George Orwell Award for his blogging. Lorraine DeJong published an article with Meredith Burton (CDC) entitled “Book clubs strengthen family-teacher partnerships and build community” in the journal Young Children in November.

MathDoug Rall gave an invited talk, “On Maximal Independent Sets in Cartesian Products” at the Canadian Discrete and Algorithmic Mathematics Conference in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in June. Rall is a coauthor of research papers “On the Cartesian product of well-covered graphs” that appeared in The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, “Domination game: extremal families of graphs for the 3/5-conjectures” in the journal Discrete Applied Mathematics, “On graphs having maximal independent sets of exactly t distinct cardinalities” in Graphs and Combinatorics and the paper “Rainbow domination in the lexicographic product of graphs” that appeared in Discrete Applied Mathematics.

F A C U L T Y

BiologyJoe Pollard’s Article, “Facultative Hyper-accumulation of Nickel in Psychotria grandis,” was published in the journal Caribbean Naturalist. Three former students were co-authors on the paper. Pollard also continues to serve as editor of Chinquapin, the quarterly newsletter of the Southern Appalachian Botanical Society, and attended the September meeting of that society’s executive council, on which he serves. John Quinn, with Jesse Wood ’14, presented a research poster “Improving biodiversity conservation in multifunctional agroecosystems” at the Yale Farm Systems Symposium. Quinn presented a poster titled “Conservation of Bell’s Vireo in managed ecosystems” at the Nebraska Natural Legacy Conference and served as a reviewer for the journal Paddy and Water Environment and Journal of Field Ornithology.

Business and AccountingMarion McHugh and coauthor Paul Polinski won the national George Krull / Grant Thornton Teaching Innovation award for their accounting

EducationGeorge Lipscomb was elected to a three year term on the Executive Board of the College and University Faculty Assembly (CUFA) of the National Council of the Social Studies. CUFA’s purpose is to promote the common interest of social studies educators in research, teaching, and other scholarly activities. Paul Thomas published three edited volumes: Becoming and Being a Teacher, which includes chapters from Katie Stover, Scott Henderson, Dawn Mitchell, and Mike Svec; Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction, which includes chapters from Svec, Mike Winiski (CTL), and Aaron Passell (SOC); co-edited with Joe Bower, De-Testing and De-grading Schools. The National Council

Modern Languages and LiteraturesMarianne Bessy presented “‘Il ne faut pas trop demander aux mots’: paniques linguistiques dans l’œuvre alexakienne” at the Vassilis Alexakis colloquium organized by the Université de Picardie Jules Verne in Amiens, France, in September.

MusicOmar Carmenates performed on a recording of Inuksuit by John Luther Adams in October. This 75-minute outdoor percussive tour-de-force was recorded in the forests of Guilford, Vermont, by 33 percussionists from across North America. The work received positive reviews from Alex Ross in the New York Times. David Gross (piano), Deirdre Hutton (violin), and Christopher Hutton (violoncello) spent May playing a thirteen-concert tour of recitals in New Zealand with programs of music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johannes Brahms, Antonin Dvorak, Gabriel Faure, and American composers Paul Schoen!eld and William Bolcom.

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Mark Kilstofte is currently a guest researcher and Fulbright scholar at the University of Oslo’s Center for Ibsen Studies where he is composing an opera based on Henrik Ibsen’s Brand. Kilstofte was invited to give a composition seminar at the Malmö Academy of Music (Sweden) earlier this fall. His “To Music,” commissioned by the Furman Singers, was recently performed by the Nova Singers under the direction of Laura Lane. Matt Olson presented guest saxophone master classes at three North Carolina high schools. Olson also had fall semester performances with the Greenville Jazz Collective, Asheville Jazz Orchestra, Nashville-based singer Diane Marino, the touring Broadway show Anything Goes, and his own jazz group at Fall for Greenville. Charles Tompkins performed a recital at the Porter Center for the Performing Arts at Brevard College in September. The program featured works by Bruhns, Sweelinck, J.S. Bach, Robert J. Powell, Reger, and Carl Rutti, performed on the Porter Center’s 3-manual Jaeckel organ.

PhilosophyAaron Simmons published a book entitled The New Phenomenology: A Philosophical Introduction, which has been adopted as a graduate course text at the University of Vienna. Simmons also served as a referee panelist for a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship competition. Simmons is currently the vice-president of the South Carolina Society for Philosophy and an of!cer in the Soren Kierkegaard Society, Society for Christian Philosophers, and the American Academy of Religion (Southeast Region).

N E W Sand Peace,” in the Asian Journal of Peacebuilding (November 2013). Guth also presented a paper on religion’s role in producing factional alignments in the U.S. Congress at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scienti!c Study of Religion in Boston in November. Aristide Tessitore’s essay “Tocqueville on Enlightenment Philosophy and Biblical Religion in American Democracy,” was published as a chapter in Resistance to Tyrants, Obedience to God: Religion and Reason at the American Founding Lexington Press, 2013.

ReligionEchol Nix was recently interviewed by members of the Oral History Project at Morehouse College and will be recognized in publications in honor of Morehouse’s Sesquicentennial in 2017.

Political ScienceJim Guth published three articles: “The Church and Congress: Religious Af!liations and Foreign Policy Voting in the U.S.” and “Militant and Cooperative Internationalism among American Religious Publics,” in the Politics and Religion Journal (Autumn 2013), and “Religion and American Public Attitudes on War

Theatre ArtsMaegan Azar directed The Warehouse Theatre’s Educational Touring production of Julius Caesar, part of the Peace Center for Performing Arts’ POP Series, in Greenville and Charleston. Azar is also the programming Chair for the South Carolina Theatre Association and planned the 2013 Convention “Engaging the Imagination,” which took place November 15–17 at Charleston County School of the Arts with such keynote presenters as John Patrick Shanley, The Warehouse Theatre, and Knighthorse Theatre Company. Randall David Cook ’91 directed a reading of his play In A Town Near Faith at the Furman Playhouse as part of Homecoming 2013, with a cast that included professional actors from Trustus Theatre in Columbia alongside Kevin Treu (CS) and Eiho Baba (PHL). Nick Radel (ENG) led the talkback. Cook’s play Pomp and Circumstance, directed by Jay Oney, made its world premiere in November and included designs by Rhett Bryson, Margaret Caterisano, and Gene Funderburk.

—Michelle Shaw

Meredith Burton engages students in scholarly research about the natural world. Students form research groups, assess and diagram the current state of knowledge on a topic, generate

questions, run experiments, and then disseminate their !ndings. Burton’s students are not earning a general education requirement for their work. This research won’t be submitted to peer-reviewed journals and probably won’t land on their résumés. She teaches three- to six-year old children and directs Furman’s Child Development Center (CDC).

A graduate of Furman’s education program now in her ninth year with the CDC, Burton includes environmental education throughout the students’ pre-school experience. The parking lot is a “no-idling” zone to protect air quality. Children learn how and what to recycle. They compost food scraps to nourish plants in the school’s butter"y garden. Students enjoy a large wooded play space. They take discovery walks along the Swamp Rabbit Trail.

The CDC uses a project-based curriculum—teachers facilitate learning through student observations and questions. Because kids are curious about the world around them, Burton says, the project approach often focuses on questions of science and the natural world.

This past fall, students were curious about trees. Why do different trees have different types of bark? How do we know what color a tree’s leaves will turn in autumn? What happens to a tree when it dies? To !nd answers, students compared and contrasted real, living trees with their own drawings. They placed leaves in water to see which leaves "oat and which sink. They applied chromatography methods to predict whether a leaf would turn orange, red, or yellow. They made paper. Finally, they summarized and presented their !ndings to their classmates.

Learning at the CDC extends beyond young children to their families. Burton cites parents who bring grass clippings and coffee grounds for the school compost bin, or who receive a pint-sized guilt trip for each recyclable item they toss in the trash can. One father said that through their involvement in the school’s butter"y garden project, he and his daughter became much more aware of their surroundings while playing in the yard or taking a hike. This value was important to the family, and the school had helped to cultivate that awareness of the natural world.

When I ask Meredith why environmental education is important, her excited cascade of stories about students and projects stops abruptly, and she seems at a loss to express how fundamental the answer should be. Referencing her own four-year-old son, she says, “At this age [3–6 years], individuals are egocentric. My goal is to broaden their world view. Children will become good stewards of the environment only by understanding how interconnected the world really is.” It’s an important lesson for students of all ages.

Yancey Fouche’ is associate director of the Shi Center for Sustainability

Singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie will bring his “Here Come the Kids” show, a tribute to American folk music, to Furman University in February as part of Greenville’s “Year of

Altruism” commemoration.Guthrie, the son of seminal American folk musician Woody Guthrie, will perform Sunday,

Feb. 16, at 2 p.m. in McAlister Auditorium.Tickets are $20 in advance ($25 at the door), free for children under !ve, and $5 for youth

and students with an ID. They are available at the Timmons Arena Box Of!ce or through TicketMaster.

Guthrie has been performing since the 1960s and has enjoyed a successful career as a singer, songwriter and storyteller. His latest tour features members of his family performing with him.

Burton is a quiet champion for sustainability

S U S T A I N A B L EC O N N E C T I O N S

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Continuing EducationLike many institutions of higher learning, the Division of Continuing Education at Furman is continuously evaluating its programs so that we can align and focus our efforts into areas where they are needed the most. For a number of years Learning for You has seen some select courses "ourish, even as many of its class offerings have experienced declining enrollments. Our plan is to dedicate our resources to strengthening those programs which have high interest, and to discontinue programs which have, for various reasons, seen declining participation from the community. We are planning to continue the Piano for Young People, Connections: Women Leaders of the Upstate, SCOPES, domestic and international travels programs, and some select classes, but under new structures and departments, some within and some outside of Continuing Education. As a result, fall 2013 will be the last of!cial semester of Learning for You.

In other news, I am delighted to announce Beth Crews has been appointed to serve as our director of Undergraduate Evening Studies effective October 7. Beth has done an admirable job steering Learning for You over the past year, and I am con!dent she will bring the same passion and expertise to her new role. I also extend my thanks and best wishes to our stalwart Learning for You program assistants, Amy Krause, who has taken a position outside of Furman, and Donna Rogers, who retired on December 31. Donna has served Furman with great loyalty since 2003, and she will continue providing excellent support and customer service for Learning for You until she retires, and perhaps on occasion in the future for continuing education.

Winter registration for OLLI begins November 19. We have 95 courses and 50 one-time events on the schedule and expect almost 1100 members to take classes. OLLI also announced a new initiative, Senior Leaders Greenville, which is a year-long program that will educate, inspire, and encourage senior adults to learn more about Greenville, and ways they can get involved to ensure the senior voice in represented in decisions being made throughout the community

The Bridges to a Brighter Future Saturday College component is off to a great start this academic year. On average, 80 percent of Bridges students participate in each monthly session. In addition to tutoring provided in Saturday College, Bridges is partnering with Kaplan to provide SAT preparation classes and Junior Achievement to provide !nancial planning workshops. Saturday College is funded through a grant from the Jolley Foundation.

Crews of Undergraduate Evening Studies (UES) has been conducting a scan of the overall program, looking toward creating process ef!ciencies, garnering improved market presence, and proposing innovative new programs. She has begun initiating greater cross-campus collaboration with Career Services, the University registrar, ITS, academic deans, the Center for Collaborative Learning & Communication, and other student services departments. This fall, (UES) has been in the process of hiring new adjunct faculty, proposing new courses, and researching new degree majors and post-baccalaureate certi!cate programs which have been suggested by Joint Working Group 3.

The Center for Corporate and Professional Development faculty and staff have been busy providing customized corporate education programs for business and industry. New clients this year have included SAGE Automotive, World Acceptance Corporation, aeSolutions, and Southern Weaving. A new course entitled, “Mexico: A Liberal Arts Perspective” was developed and taught by Erik Ching, Cleve Fraser, Jeremy Cass, and Angelica Lozano Alonso for Draexlmaier.

—Brad Bechtold

Facilities ServicesFacilities Services has enjoyed a busy but productive fall with several large construction projects at or near completion and a robust schedule of events. Below an update on some initiatives that you may not have

seen or heard about but will likely be occurring in the future.

The parking lot serving the PAC facility will soon be renovated. Beyond the replacement of the asphalt surface, the project will include improvements to the storm water drainage system and the exterior lighting levels. Unfortunately, the large Oaks in this lot are in very poor condition and will need replacement but new trees very well suited to these living conditions will be installed. The lot will close on the afternoon of December 16 and will reopen on January 10 contingent upon weather and other foreseen factors.

A recent donation has made possible a study for the establishment of an arboretum on Furman’s campus. An arboretum is a living museum where trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants are cultivated for scienti!c and educational purposes. With assistance from the Shi Center, our horticulture staff hopes to add to the diversity of our existing campus trees; install additional tree labels to improve education opportunities; establish a de!ned tree “trail” so species can be studied while walking; and generally elevate the visibility of Furman’s arboreal assets for years to come.

The design process has begun for the future addition of a sidewalk that will connect the main campus to the Vinings apartment complex. The 2,000-foot-long lighted sidewalk will be eight feet wide and provide safe pedestrian access to both the Furman campus and the Swamp Rabbit Trail.

Bernie Stanton recently attended a national conference on Risk Management in St Petersburg, Florida, that was held by the Educational and Institutional Insurance Administrators (EIIA) group. Steve Long was elected to the board of directors for the South Carolina Association of Higher Education Facilities Of!cers for a three-year term. —Michael Hawley

LibraryIn the fall, Outreach Services worked with an increasing number of student groups to help orient them to the library. This included !rst-year students, transfer students, graduate students, and international students.

Librarians have increased their work with students by 25 percent in the past two years and have needed teaching space designed to encourage active, hands-on learning. To that end, one of the library’s teaching classrooms (Library 043). The vibrant room colors and mobile chairs have been a hit with students.

The main library home page has been updated. Improvements include streamlined access to the most frequently used search tools, databases and services. Also available are “smart” "oor plans that highlight the locations of commonly used spaces in the Library.

We recently added 164,000 new eBook titles to the library catalog, covering a broad range of academic disciplines, travel handbooks, and !ction. 98,000 of the titles come from a combined package

A R O U N D C A M P U Sacquired through our statewide consortium (PASCAL) and are from academic presses. The other 66,000 eBooks are titles that are only purchased after they have been viewed or used a speci!ed number of times. This trend in eBook purchasing, known as Demand Driven Acquisition (DDA), allows us to provide access to more titles to our library users without an increase in cost.

Special Collections opened a new exhibition highlighting the collection of legendary Furman basketball coach and athletic director J. Lyles Alley. The exhibit will run through June 27, in the Furman Room on the second "oor of the James B. Duke Library.

Signi!cant progress has been made on the Peter Wexler Digital Museum with over 4000 items digitized. A video documentary about the project is being created for educational and promotional purposes.

The library will administer the MISO Survey to faculty, staff, and students beginning in February. This is an important tool to assess how the University community uses our tools and services, and to identify areas for growth.

More information about the library can be seen in its annual report and newsletter which is available on the library website. —Janis Bandelin

Development and Alumni RelationsThe Furman Of!ce of Alumni Relations enjoyed another successful year of Homecoming festivities, with classes ending in ’3 and ’8 in reunion. In the week following Homecoming, the development of!ce celebrated the of!cial success of the $400 million Because Furman Matters campaign.

Fundraising efforts for the campaign will continue until the end of 2013. Celebrations and of!cial announcements will begin in early 2014, including a special Furman magazine campaign wrap-up issue in February and a celebration gala in May.

In 2014, the development of!ce will begin charting the course for a new campaign effort centered on increased goals for annual giving fundraising. The campaign will seek to promote choice for donors, in supporting the elements of the Furman experience that were most meaningful for them. The goal for annual giving is increasing to fund existing budgets and offset upcoming budgetary challenges.

Meet our new team members: Ashley Keene (director of Development

Systems) is a summa cum laude graduate of the Moore School of Business and the South Carolina Honors College at the University of South Carolina, with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and management. In addition, she has earned a master’s of business administration also from the Moore School at USC. Ashley previously worked as a consultant for Blackbaud, Inc.

7

In the fall of 2012, Forrest Stuart (Financial Aid) decided to begin an exercise program. “I was

diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2008 and used medication and injections to control my blood sugar for several years. I had been told that exercise would affect my body’s use of insulin, but I was skeptical,” he recalled.

“For me, the hardest part was the decision to start. There is nothing about exercise that I !nd attractive, except for the after effects. So once I admitted that and found out that others felt the same way, I felt that I could push through.” Stuart committed to use the elliptical trainer in the Herman W. Lay Physical Activities Center (PAC) during his lunch hour. “I enjoyed the social aspects of that time more than I thought I would.”

With the in"uence of his daughters, Stuart also began to adopt a healthier diet. He added a simple resistance-training program and other forms of aerobic exercise to provide variety.

Over time, his blood work improved signi!cantly, and his physician decided to discontinue all of his diabetic medications. Stuart was astounded by the results of his recent physical examination. He proudly proclaimed, “I have not taken any medication in three months. I’ve lost 17 pounds, and my blood glucose and hemoglobin A1c are now in the healthy range. My doctor told me that I am not even considered ‘pre-diabetic’ anymore.”

Stuart is one of a growing number of employees who are taking great strides to improve their personal well-being. The Department of Health Sciences is proud to offer a wide variety of worksite wellness resources to assist employees who desire to adopt healthier behaviors. Furman University Eating Lean (FUEL)FUEL is a twelve-week lifestyle intervention offered to faculty, staff, and spouses at no cost. It is designed to improve nutrient intake, body composition, and reduce health outcomes associated with chronic disease, based on !ndings from scienti!c research. Approximately forty participants may enroll each semester. The next session will be held from January through April 2014.

A weekly health education class provides strategies to improve diet, exercise habits, weight management, and chronic disease risk. Classes will be held Wednesdays from 11:30 a.m.–12:15 p.m. and 1:30–2:15 p.m., and participants may attend either class. FUEL employs a simple plate-based model to guide food intake. Participants are encouraged to conform most meals to the FUEL plate, which consists of # vegetables and fruits, $ whole grains or potatoes, and $ lean proteins. This low-energy density diet allows participants to easily improve multiple aspects of health while feeling satis!ed throughout the day. Participants overwhelmingly prefer this simple eating strategy over other approaches such as portion restriction or counting calories. Stoneview Internal Medicine provides FUEL participants with blood work analyses that include total cholesterol, low density lipoproteins, very low density lipoproteins, triglycerides, glucose, glycalated hemoglobin, blood pressure, and C-reactive protein. The Department of Health Sciences conducts body composition analyses through Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry which is the most comprehensive and accurate assessment in the industry.

Throughout the program, Stoneview Internal Medicine is available to offer physician consultations with FUEL participants at the employee onsite clinic as needed, and health science major interns are available to provide individualized exercise training sessions. FIT Rx Individualized Exercise Training The Department of Health Sciences is proud to announce a new offering for 2014—FIT Rx. Twelve health sciences majors will participate in an internship in Individualized Exercise Prescription. During the internship, students will explore and

discuss the text The Exercise Professionals Guide to Optimizing Health: Strategies for Preventing and Reducing Chronic Disease. As a major component of their coursework, interns will be available to offer individualized exercise training sessions for at least thirty-!ve faculty and staff members at no cost. Spouses and children over age 13 will also be eligible to participate if space allows.

Participants will receive individualized exercise training and be offered assessments of !tness, body composition, and dietary intake to gauge progress. Beginners will receive instruction, encouragement to progress gradually, and support throughout the process. Individualized exercise training would initially be offered three times per week for at least two weeks and then continue on a weekly or monthly basis as needed. Assessments will be offered at the end of the semester for employees to track progress and evaluate the effectiveness of their program. Beginner Body Fit Exercise Class for Faculty/StaffTo support the needs of our beginner exercisers, new introductory exercise classes will be offered exclusively for faculty and staff in the PAC dance studio. The classes will encompass aerobic, resistance, and "exibility training and incorporate modi!cations for those with limitations. By the end of the semester, participants will also receive an orientation to the Furman Fitness Center equipment and provided with guidance with exercise program design. The Beginner Body Fit class led by Kelly Frazier will be held on Mondays and Wednesdays from 12:30–1:15 p.m. during the spring term. Registration is required. Employees may attend the introductory class for one entire semester at no cost and will then be encouraged to utilize other campus resources to stay active. The Furman Fitness Center The Herman W. Lay Physical Activities Center offers many opportunities for employees and their families to be physically active. The Furman Fitness Center offers 6,000 square feet of a wide variety of aerobic, resistance, and "exibility training equipment. A heated 25-yard pool is open for lap swimming, recreational swimming, and group exercise classes. Indoor racquetball courts and a 12,000 square foot basketball gymnasium provide plenty of opportunities for recreation. Furman Group Exercise ProgramThe Furman Group Exercise Program currently offers !fteen group exercise classes per week for the Furman campus and community. These classes include Boot Camp, Indoor Cycling, Body Fit Weight Training, Pilates, Yoga, Zumba, and Aqua Power. Classes are offered in the early morning, lunch hour, and late afternoon in the PAC. Employees and dependents may purchase a discounted pass for $55 for fourteen weeks of unlimited class access. Please visit www.furman!tness.com for a current class schedule. Corporate Shield Races for Runners and WalkersThe Greenville Track Club Corporate Shield Program was designed to promote teamwork, running and walking, and friendly competition among area organizations. Furman employees and their families may run or walk to participate. Events are hosted throughout the year and range from two miles to 8K races. The Furman team accumulates points for every participant who completes the event, regardless of !nish time. The Furman Institute for Running and Scienti!c Training (FIRST) is available to provide a training program for employees who would like to begin or improve a running program. Please visit www.greenvilletrackclub.com or contact Scott Murr via email at scott.murr@furman.edu for more information.

—Kelly FrazierHealth Sciences Professor and

Wellness Program Coordinator

Liz Seman (executive drector of Corporate Engagement) has worked with the American Red Cross, Hands on Greenville, and most recently Meals on Wheels of Greenville. Liz is also a member of Greenville County Council, having been elected in 2008 and again in 2012.

Sarrin Towle War!eld ’03, (assistant director of Alumni Programs) earned BA in communication studies, a women’s studies concentration and a MS in organization development and coaching certi!cate from the McColl School of Business at Queens University of Charlotte. She recently served as associate director of Residence Life at Queens University of Charlotte.

—Kate Dabbs

Marketing and Public RelationsWe have had a many new additions this fall.

First, Taylor De Lench joined our staff as videographer in October. A graduate of Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, New York), Taylor earned a BA degree in sociology and has worked as videographer, editor, and writer since 2006. Before moving to Greenville, Taylor and his wife, Lauren, lived in Chattanooga where he was the director of Lench Films, a !rm he founded.

Jessica Kalbarczyk joined our group last month. She was formerly employed at Samsung Electronics as a Social Media Analyst. Originally from Buffalo, she holds a BA in Communications from Canisius College and a MA in Integrated Marketing Communications from St. Bonaventure University. She currently lives in Simpsonville with her husband, Kyle.

Damien Pierce and Ryan Fisher recently attended the Confab Higher Education conference in Atlanta. The conference brought together 173 higher education institutions from across the country to share best practices related to content development across social media, email marketing and university websites.

Lindsay Niedringhaus ’07 and her husband, Steven welcomed this !rst child, Henry, into the world on August 20. After a maternity leave, Lindsay returned to work in November. Carol Winchester ’02 performed outstanding work this fall by pulling double duty and !lling in for Lindsay during her time away. Also, Damien Pierce and his wife, Renee Chosed celebrated the birth of their !rst child, Ari, on December 3. —John Roberts

For more information or to register forFurman Employee Wellness Programs, please contact Kelly Frazier, via email at Kelly.frazier@furman.edu.

Employees strive to improve health, well-being

8

Nonpro!t Org.U.S.Postage

PAIDGreenville, SCPermit No.80

3300 Poinsett HighwayGreenville, South Carolina 29613

T H E F U R M A N F O R U MWhat should Furman’s New Year’s resolution be?

We should have a midnight breakfast once a week.

—Cameron SmithStudent Organizations and

Greek Life

Somehow, the powers that be need to make it snow so we can all enjoy some snow days...we haven’t had snow in two years

—Kim Keefer, Leadership Programs

Furman should make a resolution to increase awareness of global issues on campus and increase outlets for students to participate in finding solutions.

—Sarah Killebrewsenior

Open up Einstein’s till late at night.

—Lake Rabenold, senior

I’d like to see more live music events inside Trone Center during the colder months.

—Andrew Cantor, Senior

Food Deserts

with Weidenbenner to create a mobile produce market called Good To Go Greenville to serve the Greater Sullivan and West Greenville communities.

“It’s like a farmer’s market to go, where we sell the produce in these areas at a reasonable price,” said Paulette Dunn, executive director of Loaves & Fishes. “Dan at Mill Village had the produce to donate, we had the refrigerated trucks that we use for our food rescue, and that led to the idea.”

Though it is too early to tell how far the effort will go toward wiping out Greenville County’s Food Deserts, Dr. Powers said she expects it at least to make enough difference to count.

“When I started at Furman seven years ago, I wondered, ‘What information do we need to improve the food landscape in Greenville?’” she said. “And I want this effort to make a change for the better in all Greenville County communities.”

— by Clark Leech

As December came to a close, our of!ce said so long to Roxanne Chase, retiring after 16 years.Roxanne is an extremely talented designer. For eight

years, this publication bene!ted from her artist’s eye and creative genius. She was the architect of its redesign in 2005. Along the way, Inside Furman, Furman Magazine, and many other publications and print materials she touched have collected many design awards.

Roxanne was trained in New York City and also worked in Greece and Washington, D.C., before settling in South Carolina and later joining Furman in 2001. Through her time at Furman she has been a tireless champion of the Furman brand. Roxanne’s love for the University extends beyond Marketing. She mentored students and has been deeply involved in the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI).

We will miss her tireless work ethic and passion for design but wish her well as she and her husband Mike, a professor emeritus at Clemson, open this new chapter in thier lives. If you need to contact Roxanne, you’ll have to do so by telephone. She promised Mike to stay away from computers and email for a while.

A note from the editor

I N S I D E F U R M A N

Published quarterly by

Marketing & Public Relations

at Furman University.

John Robertseditor

Brian Faulkenberrydesigner

Clark LeechTina Underwood

writers

Jeremy Flemingphotographer

Online archive www.furman.edu/if