Come find out at 4:30 p.m. today (Wednesday, Feb. 26) in Eykamp 253 in Ridgway University Center what you need to know about working for Crescent Magazine or the LinC yearbook for the 2014–15 school year. Learn how you earn academic credit, fulfill practicum and/or internship requirements for certain majors and build your portfolio. For more information, contact tm2@evansville.edu.

Student Activities Board will announce the headlining act for Sunset Concert 2014 TODAY at noon outside Café Court in Ridgway University Center. We will have fun give aways and more information about how UE students can pick up tickets, information about transportation, and who will also be playing with the headlining act. Come see us outside Café Court and get pumped for Sunset Concert 2014!

All members of the campus and local community are encouraged to attend I-House: China. I-House features a different international student each week sharing their story of life in their country. Attendees will learn about culture, lifestyle, food, and so much more. Bring your friends to enjoy the presentation this Wednesday at 7pm on the 2nd floor of Ridgway University Center in the Class of 1959 Gallery.

Over Spring Break three AT students are headed to Haiti where they will be serving at several orphanages throughout the week and distributing clothes, food, and medical supplies! Clothing donations are always greatly appreciated, and what do college students have more of than t-shirts!? We've all got that t-shirt drawer, likely overflowing and this could be your head start on spring cleaning! We will have a donation table set up in Ridgway University Center sponsored by AT Club!

Table times are:
Feb. 27 from 4-8 pm
Feb. 28 from 10 am-1 pm and 5-8 pm

Contact an AT major if you have questions!
 

The University of Evansville African American Alumni Association (UEAAA) will discuss “UEAAA: the History and the Zerah Priestly Carter Scholarship” on Thursday, February 27, from 5-7 p.m., Eykamp 252.253/254/255, Ridgway University Center.

This presentation will detail the history of UEAAA on campus and the Zerah Priestly Carter Scholarship (first African American graduate of the University of Evansville) awarded each year to African American students on campus.

The scholarship award will be presented at the UEAAA Luncheon on April 26.

A bowling event has been organized by the International Club. Admission $10 (2 hours). The event is planned for Saturday, March 1 from 3-5 p.m. Those wanting to participate should meet at Jazzman´s at 2.30 pm. Potential drivers, please contact mt159.

On Thursday, February 27 at 5 p.m. in the Writing Center - learn to incorporate vivid language into your introductions and conclusions, and learn how outlining can help organize your thoughts and make writing your essays easier. Whether you’re writing a research paper or just want to make your writing more compelling in general, it’s all about detail and organization!

On February 28, AOII's philanthropy Survival of the Fittest benefiting Juvenile Arthritis will be taking place at 7 p.m. in Eykamp Hall, Ridgway University Center. Tickets are $6 the week of and $8 at the door. Tickets will be sold during lunch and dinner on February 26 and 27, in Ridgway University Center, and at the door before the event.

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. The deadline to return all materials to the Office of Alumni and Parent Relations is Friday, March 14. This scholarship will be awarded each year to deserving African American UE student (s). The 2014 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.

Go to the UEAAA Website (http://www.evansville.edu/alumni/ueaaaCarter.cfm) to see the criteria for the scholarship or to download an application.

Questions? Contact H. Angela Williams at 812-488-2900 or aw162@evansville.edu.

Aces of Shades, a student run business for the BUS 270 class, is selling Oakley sunglasses for a 30% discount off retail this semester. They also offer select styles of Maxx sunglasses for $15. Message Will Knights (wk30) for more information!

FYS is currently accepting applications for teaching interns for Fall 2014. FYS 499 is a 3 credit hour teaching internship 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 will be starting the return process of unsold books soon. If you still need a textbook for the term please stop by the Bookstore and purchase it. If for some reason you need a book but can't purchase it at this time the Bookstore will be happy to hold a textbook for you for a period of time. Please contact the Bookstore if you need this done or if you have any questions.

Applications for the nomination of SGA president, vice president, senior trustee, and Academic Fund Board chairperson are open now until March 7th at 5:00 PM. Applications are available in the Center for Student Engagement. Email questions to Shaun Sizemore at ss485.

The February 2014 Pcard cycle ends February 21. Cardholders may finish reconciling transactions and print the February cycle statement on February 23 or before the GL upload on February 28.

Power strips are now available for check-out at the Libraries' Circulation Desk located in entry lobby. Power strips are for use within the facility in order to accommodate equipment plug-in where electrical outlets are not immediately adjacent to study area.

File the 2014-15 FAFSA by March 10 at www.fafsa.gov

Returning students should file the 2014-15 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to apply for federal, state and University financial aid, including all federal student loans. UE's FAFSA school code is 001795.

Filing by March 10 is essential for Indiana residents, and highly recommended for all. Questions regarding the FAFSA should be directed to the Office of Financial Aid (Olmsted Hall, Room 116) at (812) 488-2364, (800) 424-8634 or financialaid@evansville.edu.

IRS Data Retrieval Tool: The IRS Data Retrieval Tool transfers parent and/or student IRS tax information to the FAFSA. Federal income tax returns for 2013 must have been filed electronically for 2-3 weeks to be available for this process. The IRS data retrieval function can be used for the initial FAFSA or to correct a submitted FAFSA which had been filed using estimated tax information.

Smokefree Communities will award 3 prize packages for Indiana residents who are tobacco-free during March.  Email your name, phone number, email address, zip code, type of tobacco product used and for how long to quitnowcontest@hotmail.com to register.  The registration deadline is Feb. 28.

Anyone, regardless of state of residence, who wants assistance with quitting should call 1-800-QuitNow.  Most states provide counseling and some help with stop smoking aids/products.  Many services are free.

For more information, visit www.smokefreecommunities.com.  The flier outside Human Resources also has the prize packages listed.

Associate Professor of Archaeology and co-director of the Jezreel Expedition Jennie Ebeling, gave the 2014 Herbert G. May Lecture in Biblical Studies at Oberlin College on February 24. Her talk, entitled "Drinking with Ancients: Excavating a Jezreel Winery Complex," focused on the remains of a biblical-period winery installation uncovered by the Jezreel team in 2013 and the place of wine in ancient Israelite culture.

UE education students Aaron McGee and Janice Green were elected to the offices of vice president and Region 4 representative, respectively, of the Indiana Student Education Association (ISEA). They will serve one year in these offices. UE student Grace Hayes currently serves as the president of ISEA.

Senior Emmy Ogawa and freshman Mandy Feagans presented their research at the 4th annual meeting of the Indiana Physiological Society on February 22. Emmy, a biology major, presented her poster on acoustic behavior in geckos, research conducted at UE with Dr. Gordon (Biology). Mandy is a neuroscience major who's work was conducted as part of a summer internship at Eli Lilly and investigated the role of the neuropeptide orexin in addictive behaviors. Both presentations were well received.

The University of Evansville Jazz Ensemble I, under the direction of Dr. Timothy Zifer, participated in the prestigious Elmhurst College Jazz Festival this past weekend, and three members of the ensemble were awarded certificates of “Outstanding Recognition” for their roles in the ensemble’s performance. Congratulations to Meghan Pund (Outstanding Improvised Saxophone Solo), Andrew Beasley (Outstanding Drum Set Performance), and Max Engleman (Outstanding Improvised Guitar Solo), and to the entire ensemble for being invited to attend and perform!

Last Friday, Assistant Professor of Sociology Timothy L. O’Brien gave an invited presentation at Indiana University’s annual Public Sociology Forum, which focused on the role of social science in the law. O’Brien’s talk “The Use of Expert Witnesses in Courts,” examined different ways in which expert testimony is presented during litigation and the variety of barriers expert witnesses face to gaining entry into courts.

Anthony F. Beavers, Professor of Philosophy, will present a talk, "Epistemic Information Reductionism and Its Impact on American Higher Education," as part of the Sixth International Workshop on the Philosophy of Information to be held at Duke University this May.

Epistemic Information Reductionism (EIR) is the contemporary cultural understanding of knowledge as information and, thus, teaching and learning as information exchange. Adopting this definition, cognitive categories such as pondering, musing, reflecting, relating, contemplating, interpreting, evaluating, and even deciding are defined out of the educational enterprise or at least relegated to the background as a mere means for arriving at information with little attention paid to the value of thinking (as thoughtfulness in the pursuit of wisdom), and the formation of conscience and judgment concerning when and how one should act in the world.

Having established this, Beavers will turn his attention to the internal political framework of the American academy and address it in the context of a culture that is slowly commodifying information and, thus, turning universities into institutions of "knowledge production" and "information transfer." Keeping in line with this commodified model, metrics are demanded to determine how much information has been gleaned by students in order to judge the quality of a university's product. This in turn sets up a model for assessment that is forced into fields it does not fit and that largely renders discrete a continuous range of human activity for measurement and evaluation, separating for example categories like "understanding one's place in the world" from "appreciating complexity," and so forth.

A second outcome of EIR is that it implicitly redefines the professorate 1) as a system of quasi-administrators (bureaucrats as opposed to domain experts), on the one hand, who spend an increasing amount of time on paperwork in exchange for student contact time and the largely-underestimated task of keeping up in their respective fields against the backdrop of an exponentially developing cognitive landscape, and 2) as commodities themselves for information transfer to be bought and sold off as the market dictates.

The chief implication that Beavers will address in this talk is the transformation of the university and the professorate away from its previous mission of creating not only capable workers, but also thoughtful, engaged and moral citizens, into vocational schools designed to serve an economic model suited to business and, simultaneously, to create students who are less capable of questioning this model. During the course of the talk, Beavers will harken back to Plato's analogy between health and education to show that the emerging picture of higher education painted here is quite real. As the commodification of information and information brokering come to define the academy, Beavers will argue that it is following a trajectory similar to that of the health industry in the United States which has emerged as it has on the basis of an accepted and largely unquestioned commodification of health itself.

Beavers' concerns about Epistemic Information Reductionism echo concerns about Axiological Information Reductionism addressed in presentations recently given at Northern Kentucky University, the University of South Carolina and, later in March, at the University of Western Australia. For video of his Future Knowledge Interview at USC, please see http://vimeo.com/86414108; for his talk on the Threat of Ethical Nihilism also delivered at USC, please see http://vimeo.com/86414109.

Dr. Edward Bujak, Senior Lecturer in British Studies and History, will be giving a paper titled “Gentleman of the Air: The Royal Flying Corps and the English Country House Estate” at the 12th Annual Historic Houses of Ireland Conference on the Country House and the Great War, at National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 8-10 May 2014. 

Dr. David Green, Senior Lecturer in British Studies and History, is co-convening this year’s Harlaxton Medieval Symposium on “The Plantagenet Empire, 1259-1453” with Prof. Mark Ormrod (University of York) and Dr. Peter Crooks (Trinity College, Dublin). The conference will take place 15-18 July 2014 and a program with registration details can be found at http://harlaxton.org.uk/the-plantagenet-empire/

The Harlaxton Medieval Symposium is in its 30th year at Harlaxton Manor.  It draws leading scholars in Medieval studies from Britain, Europe, and the United States.  Proceedings of the Symposium are published annually by Paul Watkins Publishing.  Examples of previous topics include "The Medieval Merchant," "The Yorkist Age," "Signs and Symbols," "Memory and Commemoration in Medieval Britain," etc.
 

University of Evansville head coach Marty Simmons won his 100th game at the helm of his alma mater as the Purple Aces earned a 61-48 victory over Drake in the final regular season home game of the 2013-14 season.

D.J. Balentine led all players with 23 points on a 9-of-20 night from the floor. Blake Simmons added 13 for the Aces (12-18, 5-12 MVC) while Egidijus Mockevicius posted a game-high 10 rebounds. Drake (14-15, 5-12 MVC) was held to a season-low 48 points in the loss.

After posting just two points last time out against SIU, Balentine recorded the opening five UE tallies, leading to a 5-5 tie. Drake posted consecutive buckets to take a 9-5 edge before David Howard hit a layup and Balentine scored an old-fashioned 3-point play to give the Aces their first edge, 10-9, just over five minutes in.

Drake fought back using the long ball, hitting four of its first seven triples on its way to a 28-21 lead. Over that span, the Bulldogs connected on 8 out of 11 shots while taking their largest lead to that point with five minutes remaining in the first half. Adam Wing ended the stretch with his first bucket of the game.

Over the final minutes of the half, defense was the key, especially for Evansville. The Aces held Drake scoreless for a stretch of over six minutes, forcing six misses and a turnover. While the defense was holding strong, the offense sputtered a bit towards the end, missing two shots while turning the ball over twice. Jaylon Moore scored at the buzzer as UE trailed by just four at the break, 30-26. Balentine tallied ten to lead all players while eight out of the nine Bulldogs to take the floor scored in the first stanza.

The drought from the floor continued to open the second half for Drake as the Aces got even closer. Balentine connected from downtown for the second time to get the Aces within one at 30-29 before another triple just over three minutes into the period put UE back on top at 34-32. Richard Carter ended the stretch from the field for the Bulldogs that lasted 10:29 as his bucket tied the game back up. Drake missed a total of ten shots over that time.

Despite that basket, the Aces retook and extended their lead. UE hit 8 of its first 12 shots of the second half en route to the first double digit lead either team enjoyed in the game at that time at 46-36. Moore's second floater of the game gave Evansville its largest lead of the night at 52-37 at the midway point of the latter half.

That lead would never go back into single digits over the remainder of the game as the Aces earned the season split with Drake, taking a 61-48 win. The 48 points marked a season low for the Bulldogs; it was a great turn for UE, who gave up 94 to DU in Des Moines. The 94 was the most the Bulldogs scored versus a Division I opponent this season.

Much of that success can be attributed to a defense that went 10:29 without giving up a Bulldog field goal at the end of the first half and opening moments of the second. Another part was the second-half performance by UE. The Aces allowed Drake to hit 72% of their second-half tries in the road contest (18-25), but gave up just 30% in the latter half tonight.
Evansville took the rebounding edge by a 35-27 final thanks to ten caroms from Mockevicius. The sophomore also added four blocks. Balentine paced all players with seven helpers while Simmons checked in with six. He also had two steals.

A trip to Loyola on Saturday completes the regular season for the Purple Aces. This marks the first road contest against the Ramblers with both being members of the Missouri Valley Conference. Tip is set for 3 p.m. We will also have updates as to the seeding of the Aces heading into next week's Arch Madness.