Each year the UE Alumni Association honors the achievements and service of select alumni.  These awards are presented at the Founders Day Luncheon, Sunday, February 17, at noon.  The follow awards will be presented:

Marjorie Soyugenc M’73
Posthumous Distinguished Alumna Award

George Day ‘95
Young Alumni Award

Patricia Kishline
Samuel Orr Honorary Alumna Award

Steve ’86 and Kathie Bugg
Edie Bates Volunteer Service Award

Founders Day is recognized each year in February in honor of our founding as Moores Hill Male and Female Collegiate Institution in 1854.  Celebrate with purple cake Friday, February 15, at 12:45 p.m. in the Ridgway University Center lobby.

The annual Founders Day Convocation and Luncheon will be held on Sunday, February 17.  More information and online registration can be found at www.uealumnionline.com/foundersday2013.  Questions?  Contact the Office of Alumni and Parent Relations at alumni@evansville.edu.

It’s rare to find a positive story about the church’s mission on the front page or the morning news, but in 2012 USA Today told a story of good news and it was picked up on CBS This Morning.  Ministers and priests were taking ashes out of the church building and reaching people who could not or would not normally attend a specific worship service in a church building on Ash Wednesday. “Ashes to Go” is an inviting and creative movement of grace.  It creates opportunities for people to take a fresh look at the church and the gospel, (good news).

“Ashes to Go” is a wonderful way to bring the gifts of prayer, repentance, renewal and grace to new times and places in the world. Join the movement!

Read more about churches seeking to take the gifts of the faith community to the world outside the church doors at http://ashestogo.org/

Bishop Charles Thompson of the Catholic Diocese of Evansville will be the celebrant at Ash Wednesday Mass at 5:00 p.m. in Neu Chapel on Wednesday. The Mass will include the blessing and imposition of ashes, as Roman Catholics and other western Christians begin the Lenten period of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to prepare for Easter. Contact Newman Center director Mike Roesch at mr201@evansville.edu with any questions.
 

Ash Wednesday is February 13 of this week and will be observed on campus and in a brief noon-time service in Neu Chapel. Receive ‎"Ashes to Go” on the Sesquicentennial Oval at 10:00 a.m., in Ridgway University Center at 1:00 p.m., and at Carson Center at 1:30 p.m. 

In the Christian church, Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent, a 40-day period of discipline and study prior to the Festival of the Resurrection, Easter. You are invited to be imposed upon, remembering your mortality, but believing the Gospel. Repent!   

For more information contact University Chaplain, tg85@evansville.edu.

Don’t forget to attend the Sodexo information session on a world of opportunities today at 4 pm in Eykamp 253, Ridgway University Center. Discover all the opportunities at Sodexo that will help you grow as a professional.  Developing your know-how and employability is their number one priority.

All Road Trip Hosts and their roommates must attend one of the host meetings on Tuesday, February 12 or Wednesday, February 13. All of the meetings will be held in Hyde Hall 126 at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. If you cannot attend one of these meetings, please contact Ashley Ross (AJ53) or Bryan Hamann (BH153). Thank you for hosting!

All members of the campus and local community are encouraged to attend I-House: Zimbabwe. Attendees will learn about another culture, lifestyle, food, and so much more. Bring your friends to enjoy the presentation and complimentary cookies this Wednesday at 7 pm. on the second floor of Ridgway University Center in the Class of 1959 Gallery.

The UE Psychology Club will host a panel discussion on eating disorders at 6 p.m. Wednesday, February 13 in Eykamp Hall 252. The event is free and open to the community.

The discussion will include advice from local professionals, as well as personal stories about eating disorders. Panelists include Mari Plikuhn, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Evansville; Sandy Bowersox, a pediatric psychologist at St. Mary’s Center for Children; Amy Cavanaugh, a staff therapist at the University of Southern Indiana’s counseling center; and Kelsey Horick, a graduate student in clinical psychology at Middle Tennessee State University. 

The Rev. Dr. the Lord Leslie Griffiths of Pembrey and Burry Port Campus will be on campus from February 14-17. The campus community is invited to attend the following events throughout the week including the political science course:

Friday, February 15 
2:00–2:50 p.m.
Room 272 in Schroeder Family School of Business Administration Building
Congress/Legislative Process, PSCI 313

9:30 p.m.,
Sanctuary of Neu Chapel
Moonlight Madness Opening Worship

Saturday, February 16
9:00–3:30 p.m., Sanctuary of Neu Chapel
Pipes and Prophets
Festival of Young Preachers

Sunday, February 17
10:30 a.m.,
Sanctuary of Neu Chapel
Founders Day University Worship
Edgar M. McKown Lecture

For more information, contact Tammy Gieselman at (812) 488-2240, tg85@evansville.edu or evansville.edu/religiouslife

The Rev. Dr., the Lord Leslie Griffiths of Pembrey and Burry Port, is the Superintendent Minister of Wesley’s Chapel, the Cathedral of World Methodism in London, England and a member of the House of Lords, Labour Party.

Interested in working for Crescent Magazine or the LinC next year? Let’s talk. There will be info sessions at 4:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 19, in Eykamp 252, Ridgway University Center. Come to learn more about the variety of positions and practical opportunities available, including marketing & sales, writing, editing, photography and design positions. This is a great opportunity to gain professional experience in a publishing environment while earning academic credit. Information sheets and applications are available for all positions with Crescent Magazine at facebook.com/uecrescent and with the LinC at facebook.com/uelinc. For additional information, contact tm2@evansville.edu.

Nearly 75 employers are registered for Career Day 2013! Looking for a full-time professional position? Cooperative education opportunity? Internship?  Summer job? Make plans to attend Career Day on Tuesday, February 19, from 11 a.m.–2 p.m. in the Student Fitness Center. See registered employers in JobLink (http://careercenter.evansville.edu/uejoblink/studentslogin.html). Also, pre-register for the event in JobLink to allow employers to view your resume early!
 

An informal reception for Harlaxton Principal Gordon Kingsley and Suzanne Kingsley and Dean of Students Ben Wraith will be held Thursday, February 14 from 4:00-5:00 p.m. in the Dunigan Lounge of the Schroeder Family School of Business Administration Building. Members of the UE-Harlaxton community are encouraged to stop by to greet them.

This month’s Think Outside the Lunch Box Faculty Speaker Series event will feature a moderated conversation between UE Chaplain Tammy Gieselman and the Rev. Dr. Leslie Griffiths, the Lord of Pembrey and Burry Port, England.

The discussion will take place at noon this Thursday, February 14 in the Blue & Gold Room on the first floor of Old National Bank’s headquarters in Downtown Evansville. The event is free and open to the public.

Gieselman and Griffiths will discuss Griffiths’ role as a member of Parliament in the House of Lords, as well as his work in interfaith initiatives as the superintendent minister of Wesley’s Chapel in London, which was built by John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist religious movement. 

As a regular columnist and BBC broadcaster, Griffiths has spoken extensively on various educational and social subjects, including euthanasia, the church and civic society, the relationship between Christianity and other faiths, and international affairs.

Griffiths became a local preacher in the Methodist Church of Great Britain in 1963 and completed a Master of Arts in theology at Fitzwilliam College at the University of Cambridge in 1969. He lived and worked in Haiti from 1970 to 1980, and in 1987, he earned a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He has served as president of the Methodist Conference in Britain (1994-95) and has been the superintendent minister at Wesley’s Chapel since 1996. He has written numerous books on religious and historical themes, including an autobiography, A View from the Edge.

If you want to hear banjo, mandolin, double bass, and other instruments playing bluegrass music, come to Wheeler Concert Hall tomorrow, Feb. 23 at 4:00 p.m.! This is the senior recital of Ellyn Washburne and will feature both toe-tapping tunes and a walk through the history of bluegrass. After the recital, we’re sticking around for an open jam session, so bring your instrument if you want to try this music for yourself!

The Jostens representative will be at the UE Bookstore on Tuesday, February 26 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. near the entrance.  This will be the only visit during the year for the Jostens rep.  During this day Josten's will be offering up to 40% off on select college rings.  Women's rings start at $169 and men's at $189.  If you're looking to buy a college ring or just curious this is the perfect opportunity to place your order or get more information.  The offers are only good the day of the event.  If you have any questions please contact the UE Bookstore.

The University of Evansville, in pursuit of excellence in service, wishes to recognize a non-faculty employee displaying records of achievement as a leader.  Leadership may be demonstrated in any of the following categories:

• Service to the University community
• Service to students
• Job performance and attitude towards fellow employees

To be eligible, an employee must be a full-time member of administration or staff.

Nominations for the March 2013 Employee Excellence Award are due no later than Wednesday, February 20.

To nominate someone, or to find out more information about the Employee Excellence Awards, go to http://acelink.evansville.edu/Tools/EmployeeAward/

FYS is now offering a 3 credit hour teaching internship (FYS 499) that will provide select students the opportunity to assist in the instruction of First-Year Seminar courses. Teaching Interns (TIs) will work under the supervision of FYS faculty, working closely with them in and out of the classroom. TIs will attend FYS classes and model good academic behavior, help to facilitate discussion, work one-on-one with students on writing, and serve as a peer mentor and tutor to FYS students and a liaison between FYS faculty and students.  Interested students should contact Dr. Valerie Stein at vs9@evansville.edu for more information and an application.

The UE Bookstore is starting the return process of unsold books.  The Bookstore will be returning used books to vendors first which will begin shortly.  If you still need a textbook for the Spring term please purchase your book now.  If for some reason you need a book but don't have the money now please contact the Bookstore and we will be happy to put a book on hold for you so that it will be there when you need.  If you have any questions please contact the Bookstore.

The University of Evansville African American Alumni Association (UEAAA) is pleased to announce the application process for the Zerah Priestly Carter University of Evansville African American Scholarship is now open.  Alumni members raised the necessary funds to make this an endowed scholarship and named it in honor of Ms. Zerah Priestly Carter ’38, the first African American graduate of the University.

This scholarship will be awarded each year to  deserving African American UE student (s).  The 2013 scholarship funds are in addition to other financial aid/scholarships awarded to the recipient!  Interested and qualified students are encouraged to apply at this time. 

Scholarship Criteria:
Candidates must be African American, have sophomore standing as of Fall semester 2013, and have a 2.0 or higher grade point average.

Applicants must submit the following to be considered:

1) Completed application (http://www.evansville.edu/alumni/downloads/ZPCScholarshipApp.pdf) , 2) Written statement (not to exceed two pages) explaining his/her current professional goals, demonstrating his/her involvement in the African American community, and explaining why he/she is deserving of the scholarship. 3) Two letters of recommendation that verify and support the candidate’s community involvement activities.

Deadline:  Please return all materials to the Office of Alumni and Parent Relations by Friday, March 15, 2013.

The scholarship award will be presented at the UEAAA Annual Luncheon on Saturday, April 20,  2013.  All scholarship applicants should plan to attend this luncheon.  The luncheon is free for all UE students.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact the office of alumni and parent relations, at 812-488-2586 or e-mail: Alumni@evansville.edu.

On Tuesday Feb 12, students from Dr. Greg Rawski’s Operations Management classes trained 23 members from the Ohio Valley APICS chapter in a Lean Manufacturing Simulation. APICS is a National Association for Operations Management that provides educational and professional development opportunities to its members. The Ohio Valley Chapter serves the Evansville, Jasper, and Owensboro areas. Companies represented included Jasper Engines, Mead Johnson Nutrition, Best Home Furnishing, Kimball International, Hunter Douglas, Dupont, CountryMark, among others. The Simulation provided great training in the area of Lean Manufacturing but also gave the Schroeder Family School of Business some great leads for internship and job openings for its students.

Creative writing major Danielle Weeks has won third place in the Southern Literary Festival Creative Writing Contest for her poem “How the Water Tells Us We are Old.” The poem will be published in the Southern Literary Journal.  Winners will be officially announced at the Southern Literary Festival at Columbus State University in Georgia March 28-30, where award-winning novelist and short story writer,Tim O'Brien and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Tretheway will speak. 

The Southern Literary Festival is an organization of southern colleges and schools founded in 1937 to promote southern literature. Each year a different school hosts the Festival - which is, in effect, an undergraduate writing conference that entails writing workshops in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and playwriting. Columbus State University is hosting the festival in cooperation with The Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians and the Columbus Public Library.

The SLF has an illustrious history. Robert Penn Warren, then a professor at LSU, was one of the founders. He spoke at the conference on a number of occasions, as did Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, and Flannery O’Connor, who won an award at SLF as an undergraduate and later headlined the conference as a nationally prominent writer.

Congratulations to the Class of 2012 on outstanding post-graduation success: A recently completed survey found that 92% are employed or in graduate school!

The survey, a collaborative effort between UE’s Center for Career Development, Office of Alumni and Parent Relations, Office of Institutional Effectiveness, and academic departments, produced career information on 87 percent of the 583 members of the Class of 2012 (including December 2011, May 2012, and July 2012 graduates).

Highlights of the survey include:
• The median salary of graduates employed full-time was $42,500.
• Sixty-two percent of employed graduates were working in Indiana. When entering UE in fall 2006, 57 percent of this class was from Indiana.
• Thirty-two percent of graduates not currently in graduate school indicated plans to pursue graduate school within the next three years.

The full survey is available online at www.evansville.edu/careerdevelopment. 

The Missouri Valley Conference announced on Tuesday that University of Evansville tennis player Natasha James has been named the Women’s Tennis Athlete of the Week.

This marks the second honor in two weeks for the Purple Aces as Marketa Trousilova was named the Women’s Athlete of the Week on February 5.

A star in both singles and doubles, Natasha James won in each as the Purple Aces downed Austin Peay by a 5-2 final on Saturday. With partner Trousilova, James picked up an 8-6 doubles win over Ornella Di Salvo and Andra Cornea to jump their record to 3-2 on the season.

In singles, James picked up a win in flight one over Alison Carre, 6-2, 6-4. She is now 4-1 this spring.  The native of Las Vegas, Nev. has picked up right where she left off in her freshman season.  In her first year at UE, James was 18-4 in doubles and 14-6 in singles action.
 

Looking for its first win at SIU Arena since the 2001 season, the University of Evansville men’s basketball team will face Southern Illinois in Carbondale on Wednesday evening at 7 p.m.Overtime has been good to the Aces and it happened once again on Sunday as UE topped Drake by a final of 84-78 at the Ford Center.  Down by nine at the half, UE opened the second frame up on a 7-0 run while Colt Ryan hit the game-tying three with 30 seconds remaining.  It marked the end of a three-game slide against the Bulldogs while improving Evansville’s overall record at home to 12-2 and 7-0 in MVC games.

Since coming to the University of Evansville in 2009, Colt Ryan has produced numerous special moments and that continued on Sunday against Drake as he reached 2,000 points in his career with a season-high 33-point outing.  He is just the 14th player in Missouri Valley Conference history and the third to do so for Evansville.

Ryan’s tally currently stands at 2,027 placing him third on the UE list, just 26 points away from passing Marcus Wilson for 2nd on the list; his tally in MVC history is 13th overall.  Against Drake, Ryan surpassed the 2,000-point mark in style, recording a season-high 33 points; in the 14 games since facing Butler, he has posted an average of 22.9 points per game after struggling to begin the year as he averaged 12.4 points in the first 11 contests.

Egidijus Mockevicius has grown his game by leaps and bounds since the beginning of the season; averaging 4.7 rebounds per game on the season, the freshman has kicked it into high gear over the last six games, averaging 7.6 per contest, including a career-high of 13 against UNI; over that span, Mockevicius has also hauled in 3.4 offensive rebounds per outing.

Evansville is one of the most unselfish teams out there; led by Troy Taylor’s four assists, the Aces rank 25th in the nation, averaging 15.8 per game.  Sunday’s contest against Drake saw UE players looking to find open teammates first; UE recorded 22 assists on 26 baskets, upping their assisted basket percentage to 64%, 11th overall in D1.  Colt Ryan has also averaged 4 assists per game and ranks sixth in the league with his total; he is the only player in the MVC to rank in the top six for points (2nd with 18.8), assists and steals (5th w/1.7).

Southern Illinois enters Wednesday’s game with a 9-15 record while going 2-11 in the MVC; the Salukis picked up a huge win last week, taking down nationally-ranked Wichita State at SIU Arena by a final of 64-62.  The Salukis do a solid job of taking care of the ball, averaging just 12 turnovers per game, 69th in the country; they also rank near the top in turnovers forced, as their opponents average 15.1 per game, 55th overall.  Their 8.1 steals per games ranks second in the MVC.  Desmar Jackson tops the SIU scorers with 15.9 points per game while Jeff Early averages 11.5 points and a team-high 7.4 boards.

When SIU and UE met on January 5, the Aces finished with their third home win in a row of
the Salukis as they took an 85-68 win.  Colt Ryan scored a then-season high of 26 points as he hit eight out of 13 shots and was 7-7 from the line; Jeff Early registered a double-double for SIU with 18 points and a game-high 10 rebounds.  Up by six at the half, the Aces roared out in the second frame, shooting 61.5% to pull away for the win.  Three-point shooting played a large role as UE finished at 9-of-18 while Southern Illinois was 2-11, 18.2%.

After its annual trek to Carbondale, UE will be back home for a pair of contests, beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday against No. 23 Creighton.  Fans are encourage to wear their purple as the Aces look to set a season attendance high versus the Bluejays!