Eric Townsend

The six Elon University students in Egypt when demonstrations against the nation's president erupted last week have safely departed the country.

Thirty-six new students were welcomed to campus Sunday evening in a Convocation ceremony held for transfer students and others who enrolled at Elon University for the 2011 spring semester.

Elon University professors, students and alumni continue to make news this winter through their research and activities. Notable in January were regional media appearances by faculty who discussed American Express layoffs, President Barack Obama's State of the Union address and the Challenger anniversary, as well as student involvement with an environmental summit in Sri Lanka and the annual Polar Bear Plunge on campus.

The critically acclaimed play Crimes of the Heart returns this week in the Black Box Theatre as actors and actresses in the Department of Performing Arts share the story of three women betrayed by their passions.

Tom Arcaro, a professor of sociology and director of Project Pericles at Elon, and Lauren Taylor '10, a Periclean Scholar during her studies at Elon, presented a talk on Jan. 28, 2011, at Thames Valley University in London.

An organization that represents private colleges and universities in North Carolina has awarded Elon University a grant of $20,000 to fund programs for rising first-year college students in the Elon Academy, the Watson Scholarship Program and the Odyssey Scholarship Program.

Associate professor Tony Crider, chair of the Department of Physics at Elon University with a Ph.D. in space physics and astronomy from Rice University, is available Jan. 28, 2011, to speak with reporters by phone for anyone seeking a university professor to comment on NASA’s Challenger disaster 25 years today.

Three Elon University students in an environmental communications course have had a class video project named a finalist for a PBS television special in April, and if their work receives the top number of votes in an online contest, the network may show the project this spring to a national audience.

For many people, it just isn’t New Year’s without a traditional resolution, and “losing weight” is always a popular pledge. Elizabeth Bailey in the Department of Health and Human Performance shares advice for not just making fitness resolutions, but keeping them, in the first of an occasional series of videos where Elon University faculty members share their research and classroom expertise.