The Catawba College Indians, who rallied with a strong spring, won the 2004-05 South Atlantic Conference Athletic Excellence Award, taking the award for the first time in school history, it was announced by the league office.

Eight members of the Catawba College faculty and staff were among those recognized during the 2005 Awards Convocation held April 21 in Omwake-Dearborn Chapel on campus.

Dr. Philip Acree Cavalier, Assistant Dean of Catawba College and Associate Professor of English, has been awarded a Fulbright Lectureship in American literature in Kiev, Ukraine for the 2005-06 academic year through the Fulbright Scholars Program.

Again this year, you will need a ticket if you plan to attend one of Catawba College’s two graduation exercises slated for Saturday, May 7 in Keppel Auditorium of the Robertson College-Community Center on campus. On that day, over 200 students in the College’s traditional day program will participate in a 10 a.m. exercise, while more than 100 adult students in the College’s Lifelong Learning program will receive their diplomas in a 2 p.m. exercise.

Local students were among those honored April 21 during Catawba College’s annual Awards Convocation. The event was held in Omwake-Dearborn Chapel on campus. Catawba’s Vice President and Dean of the College Dr. Barbara Hetrick noted that the convocation was an opportunity “to honor those among us who have excelled academically” and to “reaffirm the value of excellence toward which we strive individually and collectively as a learning community.”

Twelve Catawba College students in the Lifelong Learning program were commissioned as Junior Marshals in an April 23 ceremony held in the Hurley Room of the Cannon Student Center.These Junior Marshals were chosen from the junior class based on academic rank and are among the most honored students on campus.

Catawba College students and faculty attended the 66th annual meeting of the Association of Southeastern Biologists (ASB) in Florence, Ala., April 13-16. Biology Professor Dr. Michael Baranski, past president of ASB, judged the Odum Prize Competition for that meeting.

Two students from Catawba College’s Omicron Chapter of Alpha Chi, the national college honor scholarship society, presented papers at that honor society’s national convention, held April 8 in St. Louis, Mo. Catawba’s Chapter President, Senior Katharine Marie Phelps of Prince Frederick, Md., and Senior Jennie Brooks of Charlotte both made presentations.

Catawba College students from all academic disciplines had an opportunity to showcase research they had conducted at an annual Interdisciplinary Research Symposium held April 19 in the Cannon Student Center on campus. On-campus honor societies, including Psi Chi, the Psychology Club, Alpha Chi, Gamma Sigma Epsilon, Kappa Delta Pi, Phi Epsilon, Tri Beta, and the American Chemical Society Affiliate Chapter, organized the annual event.

Jhetovi Gease of Warrenton is the curious type. In the electron microscopy course he is taking this spring at Catawba College with Biology Professor Dr. Steve Coggin, Jhetovi has gathered all kinds of biological specimens to examine very closely. And, the digital portfolio he’s created of his work with the microscope would make even the most discerning modern artist quite envious.

If you ask Catawba College Theatre Arts Professor Woody Hood to describe elements involved in the Japanese Lion Dance, here’s what he’ll tell you: “The dance depicts an afternoon in the life of a lion where he runs around, cleans himself, eats fleas off of himself, eats some fruit, takes a nap, chases a butterfly, and then runs around some more.”

The day couldn’t have been better for filming on the Catawba College campus. The sun was shining. The students were full of excitement about the campus greening initiative. Even the crabapple trees cooperated, offering their fresh pink blossoms as a backdrop for Catawba President Robert Knott’s interview.

The Catawba College Center for the Environment has received a $5,000 gift from Duke Power Company to help fund the initial phase of a campus-focused sustainable practices program. The pilot program, which will begin this spring, will help formulate a three-year initiative designed to reduce the environmental impact of campus operations and to serve as a model for other organizations and businesses in the community.

Catawba students Jay Johnson and Daniel Robertson hardly kept their eyes on the road when they drove back recently from a Green Building Conference in Atlanta. Their attention focused on the colors of roofs and the orientation of homes on lots. They talked about using insulation made from soybeans and recycling storm water for watering plants.

Seventeen originally choreographed pieces will be performed during Catawba College’s Danceworks slated at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, April 26 and 27 in Hedrick Theatre on campus. The event, produced almost solely by a Dance Ensemble class taught by Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts Missy Barnes, is free and open to the public.

Eighteen students in Catawba College’s Lifelong Learning Program were inducted into the College’s chapter of Alpha Sigma Lambda National Honor Society during a ceremony held April 13 in Tom Smith Auditorium on campus.

All four faculty members of the Catawba College Psychology Department, along with several of their students, participated in the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association held recently in Nashville, Tenn. Faculty members attending included Drs. Lyn Boulter, Karen Horner, Al Roberts, and Sheila Brownlow.

Dr. Laurel Eason, a professor of English at Catawba College, recently participated in the Association of Core Texts and Courses conference held April 7-11 in Vancouver, British Columbia. While there, she delivered a paper entitled, “Mario Vargas Llosa’s Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter: A Comedic Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.”

Senior Brandi Berrier of Lexington completed two years and earned an associate’s degree at Davidson County Community College before she was able to transfer to Catawba College for completion of a four-year degree in mathematics. When she graduates from Catawba next month, she knows she will have Tom and Martha Smith of Salisbury to thank. It was due to a Tom Smith Scholarship earned through her academic efforts that she was able to attend Catawba.

Thanks to internship stints in the non-profit world, students from Catawba College’s Ketner School of Business will have broader perspectives when they graduate.

Do you enjoy the music of Stevie Wonder, James Brown, or Stevie Ray Vaughn? Then leave the yard work behind for an afternoon and bring lawn chairs or a blanket to CatawBash 2005.

Catawba College’s ecological preserve has a way of capturing students’ attention. It’s where they study the reclusive mole salamander or train their binoculars on the cavity-dwelling prothonotary warbler or watch the erratic flight of the Falcate orangetip butterfly.

Catawba College’s One-Act Festival will be held at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, April 19 and 20 in the Florence Busby-Corriher Theatre on campus. This year, two one-act plays will be performed nightly during the festival which is open to the public and free of charge.

For a few hours recently, 23 Catawba College students became amateur numismatists of Roman coinage and they never even left their classroom. The history of the ancient western world came to life for this group of Lifelong Learners as they each were given an unique opportunity to clean, identify, date, evaluate, and keep a one-of-a-kind Roman coin at least 1,800 years old.

Three members of the Catawba College Music Department participated in the plenary session, “Musical Inclusiveness: the Catawba College Initiative,” at the College Music Society – Mid-Atlantic Chapter annual meeting held March 19 at West Virginia University.

Two of Catawba College’s creative writing students from Salisbury are among four N.C. college students honored in the Charlotte Writers’ Club’s annual Anthony Abbott Poetry Award for undergraduates.

Catawba College Writer-In-Residence Dr. Janice Fuller is one of 30 N.C. poets selected by the state’s new Poet Laureate Kathryn Stripling Byer to be included in Byer’s “A Poem a Day” project during April, poetry month.

Catawba College officials hope area undergraduate students will consider staying home this summer and taking courses to meet their general education core requirements at Catawba. Two five-week sessions, running May 16 through June 17 and June 20 through July 22, will be available at Catawba, and all courses offered will be taught by fulltime faculty.

The final Tuesday Music 515 of the spring semester at Catawba College will feature the Catawba Brass Ensemble and the College’s Brass Choir in a program of sacred and secular music. The performance, which is free and open to the public, will be at 5:15 p.m. on Tuesday, April 12, 2005, in the Omwake-Dearborn Chapel on campus