Elon Alumni

Elon University has been recognized for the fourth year in a row as a national leader in service-learning and civic engagement. The Corporation for National & Community Service named the university this week to the 2009 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll With Distinction for exemplary service efforts to America's communities.

C. Michael Smith, a faculty member in Elon's English department from 1968 to 1970, will be the next president of The American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) in Kabul. Smith is a longtime leader of international higher education and previously served as president of the American University of Nigeria and oversaw accreditation of 30 universities in the United Arab Emirates. He was recently featured in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article.

A research report authored by associate professor Mathew Gendle and Elizabeth Olszewski '09 has been published in the Spring 2010 issue of the Journal of the North Carolina Academy of Science.

On Feb. 23, Elon University President Leo M. Lambert and Scott Saylor, president of the North Carolina Railroad Company, toured the construction site of a new pedestrian tunnel under the railroad tracks on campus. The underpass is expected to open in late April.

At the deepest point of the 2009 financial woes, a class of Elon philosophy students turned to 19th century American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson to help understand America's response to the economic meltdown. What they found is published in new book titled "The Only Sin is Limitation: Essays on R.W. Emerson's multi-faceted influence on America."

Three Elon University alumni have been named recipients of Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarships to help fund graduate studies overseas. Their recent selection brings to six the number of Elon students or alumni chosen for the prestigious award since 2006.

Elon University senior John McGreevy flew to Haiti over Winter Term as part of a research project. Within days he found himself helping the wounded, the widowed and the children made orphans following the impoverished nation’s largest natural disaster in generations. The environmental studies and biology double major from the Philadelphia region recently spoke with E-net about his experience.

James Pratt ’06, who graduated with a bachelor’s of science in athletic training, was pictured in the Feb. 22 edition of USA Today in a feature story on ways athletes are recovering from injuries.

Erin Barnett '09 won an Honorable Mention - Long Form Award in the 2010 Student Documentary Competition of the Broadcast Education Association for her work, “My Name is Anita," a film she produced as a student to introduce viewers to an HIV/AIDS activist in Namibia.