Parents

Leaders need to adapt to changing conditions. They need to communicate their ideas. And if you ask Dee Dee Myers, the first woman to serve as a White House press secretary who spoke Thursday night as Elon's sixth Isabella Cannon Distinguished Visiting Professor of Leadership, she’ll tell you that leaders can’t be afraid to fail.

More than 600 students are studying abroad over Winter Term, and the Isabella Cannon Centre for International Studies is hosting a blog for parents and friends to stay up-to-date on experiences taking place in nations such as China, South Africa and Greece.

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof will headline a daylong celebration of the liberal arts and sciences on April 13, as Elon University installs its new chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

In its annual "Year in Photos" feature, the Office of University Relations has collected some of the best Elon pictures from 2009 in a retrospective slide show.

The Elon University Board of Trustees voted unanimously Dec. 14 to approve a $586 million strategic plan that will guide the university's development during the next decade. "The Elon Commitment: Engaged minds. Inspired leaders. Global citizens.," was created over the past 15 months, involving the entire community of students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents and friends in a discussion about Elon's future.

The Daily Beast, one of the leading new Web-based media outlets, has named Elon one of the decade's hottest colleges. The list of 15 colleges and universities ranks schools that make up a "whole new class of first-choice schools" that have "transformed the collegiate landscape" during the past 10 years.

With their Elon University tutors in tow, 22 children made beelines Wednesday evening for such titles as “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” and “Just Grace and the Snack Attack,” books at a local retailer that would, hopefully, foster a deeper love of the written word while rewarding their progress in a reading program organized by an upper level education course.

The Office of University Advancement has launched a new online Honor Roll of Donors as a companion to the print version of the Elon Society Honor Roll that appeared in the fall issue of The Magazine of Elon. All donors who made a gift to Elon during the past fiscal year (June 1, 2008 – May 31, 2009) are included in the searchable database.