Dan Anderson

With about 1,425 first-year students, Elon’s Class of 2015 is the largest, most qualified and most diverse in the university’s history.

Elon faculty and staff can get full details of the Aug. 22-29 Planning Week activities online. Access the site at: www.elon.edu/planningweek

Elon's Phoenix athletics program placed 198 student-athletes on the Southern Conference's 2010-11 Academic Honor Roll. Elon had the third highest number of honorees among the conference's 12 colleges and universities.

The Orientation events for Saturday, Aug. 27, will be held as scheduled.This includes the Farewell Picnic, which will be at 12:30 p.m. on the Belk Library lawn. Read this note for details of today's schedule

Students arriving on campus today (Aug. 26) should read this note for details about schedules, routes into campus and unloading instructions.

For the third consecutive year, the Sierra Club has ranked Elon University one of the nation’s top 100 “greenest universities.” The ranking, published in Sierra’s September/October 2011 magazine recognizes schools in 10 categories that include academics, waste management, energy efficiency, food, purchasing, transportation, financial and other factors.

Tony Crider, associate professor of physics, is always searching for creative ways to engage students with course material. To help his astronomy students learn about planetary science and the classification of the former planet Pluto, he created a science game called “The Pluto Debate.”

When Elon’s economics department began requiring all seniors to complete a written thesis, Greg Lilly, associate professor of economics, noticed an interesting trend. “One of the things we noticed fairly early was that there seemed to be this spread in performances, and it seems to be a spread we can’t get rid of,” he said. Read more about Professor Lilly's research...

Glenda Crawford, education professor and director of the Elon teaching fellows program, was selected to be a 2011 Wye Fellow with the Aspen Institute and traveled to Maryland for the Institute’s annual faculty seminar, July 16-22.

Elon Phoenix athletics has launched a new campaign to encourage all community members to Live the Maroon Life.