Dr. Joseph Oxendine, president of Catawba College, was surprised on his 81st birthday with cake and balloons provided by members of the senior class. Faculty, staff and students gathered to wish him well.

On Wednesday, April 6, the Catawba College Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Stephen Etters, associate professor of music, will embark by bus on its "2011 Mid-Atlantic Tour." Approximately 40 students, with majors as diverse as Environmental Science and Elementary Education, in addition to Music and Music Education, will present concerts and offer master classes in a variety of venues before returning to campus on Sunday, April 10.

The Center for the Environment at Catawba College continues to accept applications for its first annual National Youth Environmental Summit, which promises to bring high school students from across the country to the Catawba campus. The event, "Redesigning Our Future," is an intensive experience for rising high school juniors and seniors who want to learn more about becoming effective environmental leaders.

Jay Meachum, an adjunct professor of trumpet at Catawba College and director of the Catawba Pride Marching Band, will be the featured guest artist with the Wake Forest University Jazz Ensembles at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 13 in Brendle Recital Hall at Wake Forest University.

Pam Thompson, an associate professor of information systems in Catawba College's Ralph Ketner School of Business, has had a paper accepted for publication. Thompson co-authored the paper with three other professors, two at UNC Charlotte and one at Emory University. The paper will be included as a chapter in the book, "Learning Structure and Schemas from Documents," which is soon to be published by Springer in its "Studies in Computational Intelligence" series.

By Sydney Berk, Catawba College News Service. Catawba College invites you to discover one of William Shakespeare's most hilarious comedies. Follow the antics of one of theater's most loved fools, Falstaff, as he is tricked by two witty wives. (It's a comedy and time to get even.) Performed April 5 and 6 at 6:55 p.m. and April 7, 8 and 9 at 7:30 p.m., it is a production you don't want to miss.

Bryan Jordan, president and chief executive officer of First Horizon National Corporation in Memphis, Tenn., will be the seventh keynote speaker to participate in the Ralph W. Ketner School of Business' Distinguished CEO Lecture Series at Catawba College on Tuesday, April 12. Jordan, a 1984 Catawba College alumnus and Salisbury native, will offer remarks beginning at 11 a.m. on April 12 in Hedrick Little Theatre of the Robertson College-Community Center on campus.

Catawba College's Annual Sports Hall of Fame Golf Tournament, Cookout, and Inductee Luncheon is rapidly approaching. The date for the golf tournament is Friday, April 29th with a shotgun start at 1:00 p.m. at the Country Club of Salisbury with the cookout to immediately follow. The Induction Ceremony and Luncheon will be held Saturday, April 30th at 12:00 p.m. in the Kirkland Lobby of the Abernethy Physical Education Center.

Early college students enrolled at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College will visit Catawba College's campus for Campus to Campus Day 2011 Friday, March 25. The event will be an opportunity for this special population of students to experience what Catawba has to offer and to interact with Catawba's faculty, staff and students.

Catawba faculty members Dr. Elizabeth Homan (Theatre Arts) and Dr. Janice Fuller (English) traveled with thirteen Theatre Arts students to New York City in early January. The trip was part of a course being offered by Homan this spring entitled, "Collaborative Aesthetics and Ensemble Techniques" in which students will learn to become members of a working ensemble performance company.

Nine Catawba College students, all members of Phi Beta Lambda, the business honor society, spent March 1 visiting uptown Charlotte. Their tour guide of the Queen City's uptown was 1977 Catawba alumnus Joey Popp, a Charlotte radio and television host and a member of Catawba's Ketner School of Business Advisory Board. Popp took the group on a two-hour walking tour and wrapped up the afternoon with dinner at Brixx.

Source: (SalisburyPost.com) - Denise Laughlin Stewart, originally from Mooresville, is a woman who loves stories — listening to them and telling them. Her new one-woman show, "Dirty Barbie and Other Girlhood Tales," will make its world premiere at Lee Street Theatre in Salisbury, March 23-26 at 7:30 p.m. Performances will be held in the black box theater at the Looking Glass Artist Collective at 405 N. Lee Street (corner of N. Lee and Kerr).

Catawba College's Department of Mathematics hosted CAT-RUM 2011 — a Research Undergraduate Mathematics Conference on campus on March 5. Thirty undergraduate math majors and their advisors from North and South Carolina colleges and universities attended the conference. Eight of the undergraduates presented talks covering a wide spectrum of mathematical applications.

The Catawba College Gospel Choir (Divine Unity), under the direction of 2006 alumnus Dennis Reed, will host Invisible Children at 6 p.m. Friday, March 18 in Tom Smith Auditorium on campus. Invisible Children is an organization that uses the power of media to inspire young people to help end the longest running war in Africa, the war in Uganda. Their model has proven effective, and hundreds of thousands of people have been called to action through the organization’s films and the volunteers that

by Lauren Ebersole '07 - Much has happened since the last email so I'm not exactly sure where to start, what to tell, what to leave out. You don't want to read a 4-page email so I'll hit what I consider to be the highlights.

Source: SalisburyPost.com - The 14th Annual Salisbury Confederate Prison Symposium, sponsored by the Robert F. Hoke Chapter No. 78 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, will be held April 8-10. Every year in April, descendants, historians, and interested individuals gather in Salisbury to learn about the history of North Carolina’s only War Between the States prison and to exchange information.

By Forrest Anderson, Assistant Professor of English (for the Salisbury Post) - Poet Steve Kistulentz, winner of the 2009 Benjamin Saltman Award for his poetry collection, "The Luckless Age," will lead a creative writing workshop at Catawba College on Friday, March 18. A reading will follow at The Literary Bookpost.

By Katie Scarvey, Salisburypost.com - When Candace Neal graduated from Catawba College in 2008 with a theatre degree, she was dead set on becoming a working actor. And why not? During her years at Catawba, Candace appeared in — actually, stood out in — plenty of productions, including "The Marriage of Bette and Boo," "The Exonerated," "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" and "Trojan Women."

In her last two entries while on tour with the Catawba Singers, junior and Theatre Arts major Kara Procell blogs about her experiences in Bristol, Tennesse and Hickory, North Carolina. Read her last two entries...

Source: TriCities.com (Short Takes). The Catawba Singers amount to strength in numbers. They are large in size and strong in song choice. See the 62-members strong Catawba Singers of Catawba College on March 10 at First Presbyterian Church in Bristol, Tenn. What a group of youngsters. Read more...

Junior and Theatre Arts major Kara Procell shares several more experiences in her blog, "On Tour with the Catawba Singers," who are on their Spring 2011 tour during Spring Break. Read her latest blog posts...

Dr. Lou Ann Kasias, a Catawba College professor of education and coordinator of the college's graduate program, believes teachers in the region need to know just what Catawba offers in its Master of Education in Elementary Education.

Pierce Autry, a senior accounting student from Patuxent River, Md., is the fifth Catawba College accounting student to be awarded a graduate fellowship to attend North Carolina State University's Master of Accountancy (MAC) program.

Dr. Sanford Silverburg, a professor of political science at Catawba College, has authored an article, "The Contravention of Consistency: Indian Foreign Policy Toward Israel," that will be published this spring in "The Indian Yearbook of International Law and Policy."

Six students and three faculty members from Catawba College's Psychology Department recently attended the 57th annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association in Jacksonville, Fla. Those attending included students Katie Zink of Salisbury; David Bowling of Newburg, Md.; Maura Pantone of Pittsburgh, Pa.; Rebekah Brown of Cleveland; Melanie Mishue of China Grove; and Jessica Jordan of Meriden, Conn.; along with faculty members Drs. Erin Wood, Lyn Boulter and Sheila Brownlow.

There is celebration at Catawba College as the first of many offices on campus goes live with the new SunGard Higher Education Banner System. In late January, after months of training and software preparation, the Financial Aid Office began packaging financial aid for new Fall 2011 students using the Financial Aid module of the Banner system.

by Kara Procell '12. And ... they're off! We, your very own Catawba Singers, left today on their spring 2011 tour. After a slightly delayed start due to Professor Oakley's lost wallet (don't worry, we found it later) we stopped first half an hour down the road at Lexington High School, alma mater of our very own Arsherres Jenkins.

"Local Artist Tuesday: Blakley Leonard" by Jodi Philips (Kiss 95.1 FM) - This week's local artist reigns from Salisbury, NC. Making a name for himself at Catawba College, Blakley Leonard has the type of spirit that can't help but make you smile. And even more, his voice will surprise you!

In the Feb. 26 edition, the Salisbury Post gave a “dart” to NC House Bill 64 (Senate Bill 47, co-sponsored by Rowan County’s state Sen. Andrew Brock (R-Davie)) to return judicial elections in North Carolina to a partisan election, rather than the current non-partisan election system. In the study of judicial politics, it might be helpful to know what researchers have found when judges are subjected to the “will of the people,” both in terms of partisan and non-partisan elections...

March is National Athletic Training Month. Catawba College's Athletic Training Program is responsible for the health care needs for the 18 varsity sports and the varsity cheerleaders. This includes practice and game coverage virtually seven days a week including holidays...