Introducing #HarlaxtonHunt!

Now through February 14, the study abroad office will be hiding Harlaxton envelopes around the UE campus. Each morning we will post a clue on our social media (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) as to where that day’s envelope is, so make sure you’re keeping up with us! Every envelope has a specialty item inside, and whoever finds it first gets to keep it. And don’t worry - you don’t have to have been to Harlaxton to play along!

If you’re the lucky person who finds the envelope, make sure to post that you found it using the hashtag #HarlaxtonHunt so we know when it has been claimed.

Happy Hunting!

Submitted by Greta Becker gb91@evansville.edu

The Black Student Union is sponsoring events this week to kick-off the start of Black History Month.

BSU will be hosting "The Women of the Civil Rights Movement: Live Experience" on Saturday, February 3 from 6:00-8:00 p.m. in Eykamp Hall, Room 251, Ridgway University Center

 The live experience will show how historically women were critically involved in the Civil Rights Movement.

This is free and open to the public.

Please come out and support Black History Month with the Black Student Union.

For more information contact BSU president DaLisa McCallum at dm254@evansville.edu.

Submitted by LaNeeca Williams lw161@evansville.edu 

Coffee & Careers is this afternoon – Thursday, February 1 - from 4:00-5:00 p.m. on the second floor of Ridgway University Center, across from WUEV.

Join us to network with alumni and friends of the University. Learn about their career paths and the skills needed for success.

This week's focus is on careers in law and government.

Submitted by Alison Morris-McDonald am268@evansville.edu

The University of Evansville swim team is hosting session four of swimming lessons from Monday, February 5-March 1. The cost is $85. The lessons are coached by our own Purple Aces swimming team. For more information, visit our Aquatic Aces Swim and Dive lessons page on Facebook, or e-mail Emma Forbes-Milne (ef112@evansville.edu). We accept ages 3-18 at any level!

Submitted by Emma Forbes-Milne ef112@evansville.edu

The University of Evansville Music Therapy Association’s annual philanthropy event Spotlight! Is set for tonight at 7:30 p.m. in Eykamp Hall, Ridgway University Center. Students from all over campus will be performing a variety of musical acts. Proceeds from the event will go to the Isaac Miller Music Matters Family Foundation, an organization in the Evansville area that promotes music therapy and music education.

Admission is $5.

There will be prizes of gift cards from Jeanne's Gelato, Turoni's Pizza, and Honey Moon Coffee Co. for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place acts. The top three acts will be determined by crowd pleaser donations.

There will also be a door prize drawing for members of the audience.

Submitted by Amanda Mackey am523@evansville.edu

Have you heard about UE Habitat Barn Blitz?

The University of Evansville is dedicated to helping make a change in the world and now has a chance to help UE students, faculty, and staff leave a mark on the community! On April 7, UE and Habitat for Humanity will be partnering to host a “Barn Blitz” where we build 30 backyard barns in one day.

Throughout the semester, UE is running several events to help prepare everything needed for the big day, and things are already off to a great start! There are already several teams registered for the Barn Blitz, and this past Saturday we had over 20 people come out to the Habitat offices to train for building the barns.

Upcoming events include:

• February 4: Building extra jigs (template of the barn walls) so we can construct several walls at once.
• February 17: Building walls during Road Trip with the help of future UE students.
• March 23: ChangeFest 2.0 – Professor Mark Valenzuela’s second attempt at the tortilla stacking world record. There will also be a barn building showcase.
• March 24: Building barn walls as a part of UE Gives Back.
• April 7: Barn Blitz Day!

If you are interested in more information about the events or have questions about how to get involved, please e-mail Holly Carter, director of education abroad, at hc110@evansville.edu.

Submitted by Greta Becker gb91@evansville.edu 

The UE Ballroom Club is bringing in American smooth and rhythm champion Sean Michael Gehlhausen for a FREE lesson! This event is planned for Saturday, February 10 from 1:00-2:30 p.m. at Tri-State Athletic Club (555 Tennis Lane). No experience or partner needed, just your UE ID. Bring your friends or a group and e-mail the names of any attendees to Erin Lewis at EL131@evansville.edu. Sign-ups allowed until 5:00 p.m. today - Friday, February 9! Professional demonstrations provided as well. 

Submitted by Cindy Kelley ck116@evansville.edu 

Paint like Gauguin today from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Painting With a Twist Gallery, located at 5625 E. Virginia St., Suite A in Evansville. The cost is $35 and it includes all materials and snacks! Alcoholic beverages will also be available for purchase.

Register online at www.paintingwithatwist.com/studio/evansville using the passcode: TWIST.

This is a fundraising event for UE Friends of Art.

Submitted by Corliss Chastain cc270@evansville.edu

Schroeder Hall council and RSA will be hosting a party to watch the Patriots versus the Eagles this Sunday. There will be wings, nachos, tea, lemonade, prizes and games. Come spend a fun night in Rademachers Lounge for the football party of the year. The event starts at 4:30 p.m.

Submitted by Aaron Michael Cochran Ac72@evansville.edu

Yesterday a reporter from Eyewitness News sat in on Robert Dion’s class on media and politics to listen to their discussion of the recent State of the Union speech. Dion, chair for law, politics, and society, said the goal of the class is not to debate politics, but to discuss the effectiveness of techniques used by Trump and former presidents.

You can watch the Eyewitness News story here.

Director of Adult Education Lindsay Roberts joined Ange Humphrey on Local Lifestyles Wednesday to talk about the new online Health Sciences Certificate at UE which gives high school students a head start for their future health-related careers. Classes for the next 8 week course run March 12-April 26 and summer offerings will be announced soon. 

Watch the interview online here. 

Junior Ryan Taylor scored 25 points and senior Blake Simmons posted the first double-double of his career to lead the University of Evansville men's basketball team to its third win a row, taking down UNI by a final of 57-49 inside the Ford Center on Wednesday evening.

"I am just proud of our guys," Evansville head coach Marty Simmons said. "UNI was able to come back on us in the first half, but we did a nice job of playing better together in the second half. We made some plays and our defense did a nice job. This is a good win for us."

Taylor connected on 10 out of 17 shots on the night on the way to his third 20-point game in a row. Simmons finished with 15 points and 15 rebounds for UE (15-9, 5-6 MVC). Evan Kuhlman had a nice game, posting eight points in 17 minutes of work.    

"Our mindset is the same every night," Blake Simmons said after the game. "Unfortunately Dru was not out here tonight, but our goal is the same every night and that is to always play as hard as we can and get the W and that is what we did tonight."

Leading the Panthers (11-13, 3-9 MVC) was Bennett Koch. He scored 19 points and had five rebounds, both team bests.

A defensive battle ensued as the Purple Aces and Panthers battled to a 21-21 tie at the half. Evansville had the upper hand early on as a Blake Simmons trey and a field goal from Ryan Taylor gave UE a 5-0 lead. The Aces added to make it an 8-2 game before the Panthers got back on track with an Isaiah Brown triples that got them within a point at 10-9.

Taylor, who totaled 12 points in the first half, had a 10-0 run on his own. He started off with two 3-pointers that gave Evansville a 20-9 lead. UE's defense held the Panthers scoreless for 8:06 as UNI missed 10 shots in a row.

Wyatt Lohaus ended the UNI streak with a triples of his own and helped them finish the half on an 11-1 run to force the 21-21 tie at the break. Evansville missed its last seven field goal tries of the half and went without a bucket for the final 6:43. UNI's run was capped off by a Hunter Rhodes trey in the final minute that tied the game up.

The Panthers had an efficient opening possession of the second stanza. After forcing the third person foul of the night on both Dainius Chatkevicius and Dalen Traore, Rhodes hit a jumper giving the Panthers their first lead of the game at 23-21. A Bennett Koch and-one pushed the UNI lead to 28-22 less than four minutes in.

On the next UE possession, K.J. Riley ended a streak of over 10 minutes without a field goal as he connected on a shot at the 16-minute mark. Evan Kuhlman followed that up with a three to bring the Aces within one at 28-27. Taylor's hot night continued as his third 3-pointer of the game tied it up at 32-32 with 12:24 left. 

Seconds later, the 19th points of the evening for Taylor gave the lead back to Evansville at 34-33. After Northern Iowa tied it up on a free throw, a 5-0 run, all from Blake Simmons, put the advantage back in UE's favor. As a team, Evansville hit seven field goals in a row to go up, 39-34.

Neither team could pull away too far as Carlson connected from downtown to cut its deficit to a pair, but on the other end, Noah Frederking hit his first bucket of the night and Kuhlman followed it up with his second from long range as the Aces went up 45-39 with 7 minutes remaining.

Evansville's lead continued to grow. With under five minutes on the clock, Simmons' fifth basket of the game, coupled with another one from Taylor, saw UE match its largest lead at 53-42. The Panthers got as close as seven in the final minutes, but the Aces clinched the night with a 57-49 victory.

UNI finished with a slight 33-32 edge on the boards, but it was the Aces offense finishing the night at 45.7% while the defense held UNI to 31.3%.

Simmons led everyone with his career mark of 15 caroms to go along with 15 points in his first double-double.  He was proud of the effort following the game.

"I was able to block out, be aggressive and go after the boards," Simmons said. "Sometimes the ball just falls to you and tonight, the bounces were going towards me. It was good to have a double-double, but more important, we got the win."

It is back to the road for the Aces as they travel to Normal, Ill. on Saturday to face Illinois State in a 3:00 p.m. contest inside Redbird Arena.

The 2018 MVC Softball season will be highly contested as two points separate the preseason favorite from the school picked third. Illinois State has been picked as this year’s preseason favorite in Missouri Valley Conference softball as voted by the league’s coaches. The Redbirds earned two first-place votes and 88 points. Southern Illinois was picked in second-place with three first-place votes and 87 points while UNI claimed third (three first-place votes and 86 points). 

The University of Evansville was picked to finish in sixth place (56 points) while junior Morgan Florey was named to the Preseason All-Conference Team. The Purple Aces graduated nine seniors from a season ago and will be under the experience of the lone senior, Brittany Hay, and junior Morgan Florey. 

“This is going to be an exciting season of MVC softball action,” UE head coach Mat Mundell said. “As you can tell from the coaches voting, the league is going to be wide open. I understand being picked to finish sixth because we have a lot of question marks coming into the season our goal of course is to finish higher.”

Hay was named 2017 MVC Newcomer of the Year while Florey earned 2017 MVC All-Conference Second-Team laurels and 2018 MVC Preseason All-MVC honors. Against league foes, Florey held a 1.81 ERA and struck out 95 batters, the best in the Conference.

Nine of the Missouri Valley Conference softball teams begin action the second weekend of February, with tournament play and non-conference games. Indiana State will start the season the following weekend. League competition will begin Friday, March 16 for two teams with the remainder of the Conference starting Saturday, March 17.  

Evansville is ready to start its season in Lafayette, Louisiana, at the Louisiana Classic.  The Aces face Samford, Louisiana, UIC, Iowa, and Eastern Illinois in the tournament.

A group of 19 Honors Program students donated time last weekend at the Evansville Rescue Mission, Ronald McDonald House, and United Caring Services through a new community service initiative they are calling HACER ("to do" in Spanish). They presented two of the organizations with $100 donations made possible through funds raised at the annual Honors Program/HAB Nerd Wars. A special thanks goes out to Aditi Sood, Karyn Banks, Josh Baty, Elizabeth Niedbala, Minka Gill, Rachel Haller, Samantha Wallisch, Ian Alberts, Evan Barnett, Sarah Weithers, Kianna Wong, Vaishnavi Ravipati, Gillian Short, Serena Thaman, Aimee Savoie, Summer El-Khodary, Abigail Schubert, Michaela Kunkler, Rachel Gomes, and Victoria Martin.

Submitted by Cherie Leonhardt CL29@evansville.edu 

After a year-long process with input from faculty, staff, and community members, the GAP program has been renamed to ChangeLab. 

ChangeLab provides a chance to test your skills by connecting the classroom and the real world. Innovate and collaborate to create positive change for businesses, non-profits, and the community.

Thank you to the many students, faculty, staff, and partners who have been or are engaged in the 23 projects we have supported this academic year or the 72 projects we have supported since 2012!

Submitted by: Jill Griffin

Are you a member of a Methodist church? Apply now for Methodist Dollars for Scholars and Endowed Scholarships through the United Methodist Higher Education Foundation.

More information can be found at www.umhef.org.

Submitted by Cathleen Wright cw259@evansville.edu

The Office of Admission needs current UE students who live in the residence halls to host prospective high school seniors for Road Trip, February 16-18. If you are available, you can apply to host at http://acelink.evansville.edu/forms/admission/RoadTripAssistance.cfm, by e-mailing Ashley Ross (aj53@evansville.edu) or Kaitlyn Grimwood (kg218@evansville.edu), or stopping by the Office of Admission (OH 104).

Submitted by Kaitlyn Grimwood kg218@evansville.edu

Assistant professor of music history Kristen Strandberg contributed an essay to conference proceedings recently published by the National Chopin Institute in Warsaw, Poland. The volume’s essays demonstrate the ways in which vocal music influenced instrumental music in the nineteenth century. Strandberg’s essay is titled “The ‘Singing’ Violinist as Artistic Genius in Nineteenth-Century France.

Bhargavi Bandi has been named the University of Evansville’s February 2018 Employee of the Month.

Bhargavi has been instrumental in developing the computer system, Slate, to enhance recruiting endeavors in the admission office. As enrollment technology specialist, she has made it possible to bring other departments across campus into Slate to enhance their departmental work flow.

Bhargavi is always ready to assist in any way that she can and she keeps calm no matter how difficult the task is in front of her. When called upon, she is quick to resolve a problem. Bhargavi displays an amazing attitude at all times, even while being pulled in many different directions. She is extremely capable and helpful to all.

Congratulations to Bhargavi on being awarded February 2018 Employee of the Month!