A special class was designed to help students at Southern Virginia learn appropriate and advanced training principles to help them accomplish personal running goals. The class, titled “Advanced Running and Marathoning,” is meant for any student, regardless of current running ability.

While the class itself is presented towards those already familiar with running and is not a basic jogging course, it teaches students how to set appropriate goals regardless of ability, then create their own training programs using proven scientific principles, and finally coach themselves and others to success. These included taking part in half marathons and marathons near the end of the semester.

At the Blue Ridge Marathon in Roanoke, Va., last Saturday, three class participants did just that and more. Nicole Nahoolewa placed 9th overall in the women’s division in 1:44:30, and Leah Huber placed 10th overall in 1:45:08. Kelli Nahoolewa was an unofficial participant and ran the course in 1:42:54.

Ben Houldridge placed 19th overall in the marathon, running 3:23:08. A great time by any standards, even more so considering the brutal climbing in the course. The Blue Ridge Marathon boasts being “The Toughest Road Marathon in America.” The marathon includes a total elevation loss/gain of 7,440 feet. The half marathon 2,528 feet. In 2012, this time would have placed him in the top 10 of the race.

Other class participants Lucas and Catherine Reynolds completed the Charlottesville Half Marathon on April 6 in 2:35:38. Alena Chunn and Stephanie Peabody designed programs for fast times at Southern Virginia’s 5k for 5k. Dan Fotheringham took part in the Monument Avenue 10k in Richmond, Va., on April 13.  

Additional class members, Taylor Ellsworth, Kim Fuentes, Brittany Kovacs and Maia McArthur, are slated for events ranging from 10k to half marathon in the upcoming weeks.

(Post by Dr. Adam Roggia, course instructor.)

 

 

Students at Southern Virginia University can now become licensed in the state of Virginia for three different teaching programs: elementary education, instrumental music and Spanish. Both music and Spanish certifications meet the requirements to teach students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Not only can students now complete licensure requirements to teach straight out of Southern Virginia, but they can complete some requirements at Washington & Lee University and the Virginia Military Institute through the Rockbridge Teacher Education Consortium.

If you want to learn more about the requirements of the program, visit the university website.

(Post by Hannah Benson Rodriguez ’13.)

If you ask most Southern Virginia University students what they love most about attending this school, I would be willing to bet that every one of them would put the great faculty here at the top of their list. Our faculty are not only excellent scholars and instructors, but I almost always feel that they truly care about me as well as the other students in their classes. 

As a senior with severe cases of nostalgia and senioritis, I’ve been thinking back on all of the professors here who have made a difference in my life. From my excellent, encouraging college composition professor, Carol Lavine, to the professors of my upper division courses, my teachers have consistently inspired, educated and mentored me.

For this reason, students this year gave personal gifts to their professors at the annual faculty appreciation dinner. The idea was headstarted by members of the student association’s academic committee and carried out by students. In a course I am taking on the history of dance, we gave our professor signed ballet shoes, as well as a group photo of members of the class. I really enjoyed coming up with our gift idea and participating in thanking our professor as a class.

(Post by Hannah Benson Rodriguez ’13. Photos by Dinah Rogers ’13.)

Thanks Brittany Weisler, Amy Copans, Amanda Judd, Allen Levie and Jarron Johnson for the use of their assignments in this blog. Thanks also to Sean Flanagan, Doug Himes, Elijah Olson, Mariah Pulver, and Tristan Schulthies for contributing photographs of the art program’s course excursion to Washington, D.C. Thanks to Travel Study for getting us up there and back safely.

(Post Courtesy of the Southern Virginia Art Blog.)

I have been blessed with the coolest way to spend my last semester of college. For quite some time, I have wanted to do an after-school art program at an elementary school. This semester, an opportunity came up to do exactly that. Except it has been better than I could have ever dreamed. It just happened that a local elementary school has an after-school program where various community members provide different classes and workshops for the kids. There was a local artist that would be teaching a stained-glass class, and as soon as I heard that, I knew that I had to help out with it. I have always wanted to learn the art of stained glass, so this way I got to help kids while I learned along with them. I talked to one of my art professors and we set up an internship for me to assist in the stained-glass class. 

This is my fourth week doing the internship, and I’ve learned a lot of things and am really enjoying it. But the goodness doesn’t stop there. I really adore the woman who teaches the stained glass class, and I guess she kind of likes me too, because now I get to work with her in her studio! No, people, I’m not even kidding you. It’s a dream come true. I even quit my restaurant job so that I could devote more time to this. I am learning so much from her and I think she is just the greatest. Every time I go to her studio I can focus on what I love most—making art. I am so humbled and thrilled by this opportunity, and am grateful for Karla’s patience in teaching me the ins and outs of glass art. I now am trying to scheme a way to set up my own glass studio as soon as my husband and I move, because I have a feeling I’m going to feel quite a void when we leave. 

I now have at least one band-aid on my hands at all times. So worth it.

(Post by MaKenna Whiting ’13. Photo by Karla Rodgers.)

 

Freshmen, I have some good and bad news for you.

Bad news: You’re probably not very good at time and self-management, and you probably don’t really know how your brain works and how to learn in college.

Good news: There’s a planner for that.

More specifically, “The Deep Learning Academic Success Planner,” written by our very own Dr. Karen Walker. Trust me, it has everything you need to know and more. If you’re in the “Becoming a Leader-Servant” class, you should already have it on hand. It tells you about how your brain works, good ways to actively read and take notes, how to create a schedule and how to study for exams. It also has a day-by-day planner from August 2012 to December 2013, where you can write down important tasks and when and where you’re going to accomplish them. All of this information is just as relevant for freshmen as it is for every other student, teacher, tutor, parent, or coach out there, so if you’re not a freshman, you should still think about purchasing “The Deep Learning Academic Success Planner.”

Dr. Walker is the director of Southern Virginia’s academic success program, as well as an assistant professor in family and child development, and, the coolest part, a doctor (of psychology). This is not only a really impressive list, but a list of some really good reasons to trust her.

So really. Go check it out. If you already have one, use it. Doctor’s orders.

(Post by Dain Broadbent ’13.)

 

Friday nights are normally spent trying to convince myself that I’m being a productive college student as I try to get some sort of homework done before going out with friends. The end result? Convincing myself that the homework can wait and that it’s time to have some fun. Well, this past weekend was a win-win with a trip to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Students in Professor Debra Sowell’s “Art in Western Civilization” class took a field trip to do some interactive learning—and what an experience it was. Nothing like going on a road trip with the Provost and his wife. Being from lonely old Iowa, it’s hard for me to say that I’ve been to some interesting museums (unless you consider museums on the history of farming), so this place was a great experience for me. I got to see my first real-life mummy (okay, maybe not so “lively”) and make some new friends. We finished at Professor Kirk-Rodgers’ house, where we ate s’mores and drank some delicious wassail—another first for me.

With all these firsts, I sure felt like I’d lived a sheltered life before! Luckily, we have the best professors here at Southern Virginia that always try to find ways to make learning fun and interesting. Just another reason why I love Southern Virginia University.

(Post by Michael Goering ‘15. Photos by students in “Art in Western Civilization.”)

 

The Philosophy Club on campus hosted a Thursday Think last week which featured an address titled ”Problems of Evil and the Evasion of Morality” by Dr. Reshef Agam-Segal, assistant professor of philosophy at the Virginia Military Institute.

Dr. Agam-Segal’s specialties include ethics and the philosophy of language. He received both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a doctorate from the University of Oxford. His work has been published in a number of scholarly journals and he has received several awards and fellowships.

“The traditional problem of evil is that the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God is incompatible with the presence of evil in the world,” said Dr. John Armstrong, Willis J. Smith Professor of Philosophy at Southern Virginia. “Professor Agam-Segal said the problem comes across as a complaint against God for not doing more to reduce evil in the world. In the Thursday Think, he argued that people should be more concerned about their own shameful fascination with evil. Rather than blaming God for the presence of evil in the world, we should stop evading our moral responsibility to be disgusted with evil.”

(Post by Hannah Benson Rodriguez ’13. Photos by Lindsey Morgan ’14.)

 

Professor Matthew Bowman’s class on “Mormonism and the American Experience” is one of the most engaging and fascinating classes I’ve taken at Southern Virginia because the content hits so close to home.

Last week, Professor Bowman wrote an article titled “Is This The Mormon Moment?” for Time Ideas. The fact that he writes for prominent news publications, in a way, feels gratifying; I feel like it brings a lot of credibility and prestige to his class.
 
In the article, he compares Romney’s election to Kennedy’s election, in the sense that Kennedy was able to sway the election to be about tolerance and bigotry. Nixon said that Kennedy won because he was Catholic.

Bowman mentions that, though “Kennedy was quite ready to compromise in places where Americans found his religion a bit disconcerting,” Romney “seems uninterested in attempting to explain his religion away… he feels like he doesn’t have anything to explain.”
 
Professor Bowman takes an insightful look into the media’s perceptions of Mitt Romney and his campaign. It’s a very interesting article and I absolutely recommend reading it.
 
(Post by Garret Bernal ’14.)

Dr. Iana Konstantinova, assistant professor of Spanish at Southern Virginia, will give a lecture titled “The Creative Art of Crime Reporting: Journalism and Metafiction in Claudia Piñeiro’s Betibú and Alberto Fuguet’s Tinta roja” at the Virginia Military Institute this week. The lecture is presented by The Virginia Latino Higher Education Network.

Each of the works that Professor Konstantinova will discuss centers on “the crime section of a fictional newspaper and each comments on the blurring of the boundaries that traditionally separated the act of crime reporting and the act of writing fiction.” Additionally, the novels both provide commentary on issues involving freedom of the press, political corruption, and information control.

I took Spanish IV from Professor Konstantinova and let me tell you that she is one incredible woman. She was raised in Bulgaria, received a bachelor’s degree in English and Spanish from Texas Christian University, and received both a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. As you can see, she is a dedicated scholar. And from my experience, I know that she is also a wonderful teacher, who really cares about her students and is stellar at helping them learn the Spanish language. Not only is she a great professor and fluent in (at least) three languages, but you’ll also see her in the Stoddard Activities Center leading free group exercise classes as a Body Attack instructor.

(Post by Hannah Benson Rodriguez ’13.)