Well, I had great fun reading Milton for the first time during the Milton Marathon group read of Paradise Lost this past week.  I entered the Marathon in the middle of Book VIII (passion must be balanced by reason) and the group proceeded into Book IX when during my turn I read the infamous scene of the Serpent enticing Eve to eat the apple.  Eve!!  Serpent!!  And Henry Limouze provided apples for all of us to eat.  Why did my apple taste better than I ever remember an apple tasting?  Thank you Henry for providing such a great, collaborative experience for us all!  And thank you to co-sponsors Sigma Delta Tau Honors Society and the Department of English Language and Literatures. 

The Dean's Student Advisory Board is hosting the 2015 Mission Statement Awards this Sunday, April 12, from 2:00-4:00pm in Millett Atrium.  The Mission Statement Award is presented to the CoLA student who most fully embodies and aspires to achieve the mission of the college by dedicating one's self to future aspirations, embracing a wide base of knowledge as a foundation for future success, and engaging in creative, innovative, and applied scholarship and service to benefit the communities within which one works and lives.  The program will include a panel discussion by new Director of Student Retention Becca Salay and CoLA alum Rob Boley.  I look forward to congratulating the award recipients and to hanging out with our wonderful DSAB group! 

Congratulations to the Music Education program for receiving approval from the Ohio Board of Regents for its Multi-Age Music License preparation program! Congratulations to Bill Jobert, Music, for his work to make this happen.  I hope you were able to stop by the Millett Atrium today to hear some of Music's great students during a live performance by the bassoon and oboe studio ensembles.

Elections were recently held to determine the Academic Year 2015-17 Faculty President, Faculty Vice President, and Faculty Senate CoLA representatives. Congratulations to Carol Loranger, English, who was elected Faculty President. Doug Petkie in the College of Science and Mathematics was voted Faculty Vice President.

Congratulations to next year's CoLA Senators:

Today in the Student Union marks the sixth Celebration of Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities.  Undergraduate students from a wide array of disciplines will showcase their academic endeavors, exhibiting their discoveries, advances, and scholarly explorations. CoLA will have great representation this year by these fantastic student participants who will make either oral or poster presentations:  

Oral Presentations 

Poster Presentations              

Faculty/peer mentor team Pascale Abadie, Modern Languages, and Jasmine Hunsberger, International Studies, collaborated with the Department of Modern Languages and the LEAP program to teach a splendid Languages and Cultures of the World learning community. This instructional team arranged for the participation of eight different professors from the Modern Languages Department, presenting on: Puerto Rico, Mauritania, Spain, Japan, Germany, Canada, France, and Brazil.  Congratulations to Pascale and Jasmine for receiving the UVC Outstanding Collaboration award. 

This week's featured New Faculty is Arabic Assistant Professor, Joshua Mabra.  Joshua received his B.A. in Anthropology from Kenyon College in 2005.  He began studying Arabic in 2002 and has studied the language in Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, and Egypt.  He received an M.A. in Islamic Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 2007 and an M.A. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago in 2011. He will complete his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago this spring. Joshua's research focuses on the great religious and cultural changes of the Late Antique and early Islamic periods.  He is particularly interested in the intertextuality of Arabic, Coptic, Syriac, Ethiopic and Greek texts. Welcome Joshua!