Student Center Renovation Update: November 30

The inside of the Student Center is beginning to look much different than it has during the first months of the renovation process. Where workers spent most of their time on demolition, they are now building. The facility now sports new steel beams, and crews have begun to lay the flooring in some areas. In the part of the building that once housed the Bake Shop below and the Skeller on the main floor, there has been tremendous progress. Concrete has been poured, and steel beams are now in place. Crews will continue with the flooring during the coming weeks. Keep checking the blog for updates!

Christmas Vespers tradition continues

Students will continue a Christmas-season tradition this Sunday with the performance of Christmas Vespers.

This annual service at the College includes scripture readings and songs by a choir, with some singing by the congregation. The music and words progress through the Biblical story of the birth of Jesus.

There is something special about that experience every year, said Randall Speer, music professor and director of the Randolph College Chorale.

"I don't feel ready for Christmas until I do that," he said. Alumnae of the College have expressed the same sentiment when they have returned for the service, he said.

This year's performance centers around O Magnum Mysterium by the Spanish composer Tomas Luis da Victoria. The text of this song speaks about the "great mystery" that Jesus was born in a stable and laid in a manger as animals watched, Speer explained. The music is exciting, with several different melodies carrying listeners through the text, Speer said. Three students are providing cello, violin, and flute accompaniment for this piece.

The program also includes two Christmas-themed segments from Randall Thompson's Place of the Blest, serving as a preview of an April concert when Chorale will perform Thompson's entire work with Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra.

Speer recently looked through a collection of printed musical programs and found that the College has held Christmas Vespers regularly for at least 30 years.

This tradition is just one way the College is ringing in the holiday season. Tonight, students have the opportunity to decorate a tree in the Main Hall lobby, followed by a tree lighting service at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8.

Holocaust survivor, Medal of Freedom winner speaks at Randolph this week

Gerda Weissmann Klein's story has inspired millions.

She survived slave labor and brutal treatment during the Holocaust. Then she devoted her life to humanitarian service and spreading a message of hope. This year, she received the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from President Barack Obama.

This week, she brings her story to Randolph College.

Klein is coming to Lynchburg for an event co-sponsored by the College and the Holocaust Education Foundation of Central Virginia.

At 7:30 p.m. today, the community can view One Survivor Remembers, an Oscar-winning documentary based on her autobiography All But My Life, in the Smith Memorial Building, room 300.

Then, Klein will speak at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Smith Hall Theatre.

Klein was 15 years old when German troops invaded her home town of Bielsko, Poland. She survived six years of Nazi rule, slave labor, and concentration camps. In 1945 she was rescued by Kurt Klein, a U.S. Army Intelligence officer, whom she later married.

Klein's life work has been dedicated to promoting tolerance, encouraging service, and combating hunger. She has written numerous books. She and her late husband founded the Gerda and Kurt Klein Foundation to provide educational programs toward those purposes. In 2008, she founded Citizenship Counts, a national nonprofit organization that promotes values of citizenship and community service.

The College is happy to host Klein and hear her message this week.

Gratitude this Thanksgiving

We've noticed a lot of people on Facebook listing one thing for which they are grateful every day this month. Randolph College has a lot to be thankful for, too, this Thanksgiving. Here is a list of just a few things—we could never mention them all!

In the comments below, tell us what you're thankful for.

1. Dedicated professors who inspire and mentor. Ranked number one most accessible in the country, in the top 20 overall, our faculty make Randolph College what it is.

2. A rich heritage shaped by alumnae who studied here, started traditions, and built a solid academic reputation over a period of more than a century. Our students have a lot to inspire them!

3. Lively students who keep our campus energized and forward-thinking, whether they're studying, writing, dancing, or playing Humans vs. Zombies.

4. An art collection with about 4,000 works, housed in the Maier Museum of Art and in hallways and offices all over campus.

5. Caring staff that focuses on student growth and success.

6. Our future students. We look forward to meeting the class of 2016!

7. A $6 million student center set to open next year, and the alumnae and their families who supported it. Students will enjoy this space for generations to come!

8. A gorgeous historic campus, and a hard-working building and grounds team that keeps it looking top-notch.

9. Founders, trustees, and benefactors who believe in Vita Abundantior. Thank you for your leadership and support!

10. Our seniors, with funny hats and buttons. You always make us smile!


11. A multicultural campus where students celebrate their heritage and share it with others.

12. Student athletes who make us proud on the field and on the court—including a men's soccer team that won an ODAC title and then battled its way to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen.

13. Randolph's Innovative Student Experience. Students are using their $2,000 grants to research water quality and coral reefs in the Virgin Islands, purchase art supplies,attend conferences, study abroad, and more.

14. High-profile speakers. Where else can you hear from the likes of evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, Muslim scholar Ziauddin Sardar, architectural historian Richard Guy Wilkins, and Presidential Medal of Freedom-winning Gerda Wiessman Klein all within one semester? We look forward to more great speakers, such as political strategist Karl Rove, next semester.

16. Autumn leaves. Although most of them have fallen now, they added a nice flare to our campus this year.

17. Our Honor Code. Students will start taking their self-scheduled, self-proctored exams shortly after they return from Thanksgiving break. That they have the integrity to be trusted with this privilege is awesome!

18. The right to have a say in government. Some of our students voted in Virginia's recent elections, and some worked on campaigns.

19. The chamber orchestra that the music department plans to debut next semester.

20. The dining hall staff who prepare great food, serve it with a smile, and wash the dishes for us.


21. The novelists, poets, and other writers who share their wit, wisdom and experience in the Randolph College Visiting Writers Series. Our students learn a lot from these professionals, and we all enjoy listening to them read their work.

22. A Summer Research Program that lets students stay on campus over the summer to conduct serious research with their professors.

23. Main Grounds coffee on a foggy morning, and Red Door coffee or hot chocolate on a cool evening, with some drink flavors invented by students themselves!

24. Songshine and Voices, our a cappella groups that make us proud, especially when they sing the College song together.

Education is key to producing leaders, trustee says in lecture

A liberal arts education can help reunite the qualities and ideals that produced great, historic leaders in America, according to Josiah Bunting, a member of the Randolph College board of trustees.

Bunting spoke Monday at the College. The author of a published biography on Ulysses S. Grant and a forthcoming book on George C. Marshall, he discussed the common qualities that made great leaders in the past.

He introduced his audience to a new word—prosopography.

“Prosopography is a branch of history which is concerned with groups allied in a common purpose or brought together by some extrinsic cause,” Bunting said.

In his lecture titled "Where Have the Great Ones Gone?" Bunting focused on a few generations of great leaders and the common experiences that prompted greatness.

A classical education united the Founding Fathers. Education in their time consisted of a significant amount of solitary study and thinking. The most-read texts were histories. “They were familiar with how previous republics, and how successful republics, or unsuccessful attempts at republics, were made,” he said.

Next in his discussion was the generation of 1880. Taught by people who had fought in the Civil War, this group of people later fought in WWI. The group includes Marshall, who served as Army Chief of Staff during World War II and as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense later.

“The generation of 1880 furnished an extraordinary cohort of Americans who led us through the last years of the Great Depression, the cataclysm of the Second World War, and the post-war years,” Bunting said.

He also discussed the generation of young soldiers who fought in World War II. While they accomplished much for the country, they are slow to seek or accept praise, Bunting said. “They are modest. It’s hard to get anything out of them,” he said. “They were raised in a culture that was not dominated by celebrity and terrible political dissension.”

Some qualities found in all three groups include sound judgment; concern for the future; patient collection of facts; and a willingness to understand the positions of those of differing political opinions.

Service was a common theme in their lives. “There was a clear sense that you could put your knowledge to the service of national aspirations,” Bunting said. “It was a time of idealism.”

“I hope you’re all thinking about 2011 as I’m saying these things,” Bunting said.

Many of the qualities that made great leaders in the past are noticeably absent today, he said. People do not spend long hours studying single topics. Politics are locked in partisanship and gridlock. Fewer serve in the military.

Bunting did not paint an entirely negative picture, though. He said the country can produce more great leaders through education that causes people to think deeply and openly.

“I think there is hope for the future,” he said. That hope can be found in “small liberal arts colleges like Randolph, where teachers, in their own lives, constantly visible around students, are themselves the mature product of liberal education and the good it can do.” 

Multimedia journalism minor adds to education options at Randolph College

Randolph College students can now pursue a minor to gain skills that are crucial to today’s journalists.

The faculty recently approved a multimedia journalism minor. Currently, the minor consists of several journalism related courses already offered by the College. More courses could be added in the future, said Chad Beck, chair of the Communication Studies department.

“We have many students that consistently take journalism classes, so we know there’s a demand for it,” Beck said. “We decided that we needed to give students a multimedia journalism education.”

“Journalists today combine traditional methods of on-the-street,traditional investigative reporting, but they have to be multimedia professionals,” Beck said. “They have to use digital cameras for photography as well as filmmaking. They have to use blogs, and various forms of software for editing and publishing.”

Students can declare the minor and fulfill the requirements by taking 18 credit hours, including these courses:

COMM 102: Introduction to Mass Media—This course covers media organizations, what they do, and how we can analyze them.
COMM 111: Introduction to Communication and Cultural Studies—Learn how to analyze media in a cultural context.
COMM 211: News Reporting or COMM 212: Feature Writing—These two classes help students develop skills in writing news articles (about events and issues) and feature stories (about people, lifestyle, and culture).
COMM 330: News Media in the Information Age or COMM 432:Issues in Global Communication—Take a look at how journalism is meeting the challenges of reporting on an international, interconnected world, and how news reporting is playing a role in politics worldwide.
COMM 213: Newspaper Production Lab—The campus newspaper, The Sundial, is produced by students in this class.
COMM 279: Digital Filmmaking or COMM 181: Photography—A picture is worth a thousand words, so how much is a video worth? These classes explore storytelling through video and still photography. Both are essential elements of journalism today.

Students interested in broadcasting may also consider taking COMM 241: American Radio and Television, which examines how these media have changed since American families first tuned in to broadcast entertainment and news.

The communications studies department also encourages students in this minor to obtain an internship with a media outlet.

In the past, students have interned at our local ABC affiliate, WSET; Lynchburg Living, a local lifestyle magazine; Zohe Films, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Fox’s production company;and NBC Universal in Washington, DC.

Beck said this minor will give students a wide range of hands-on experience as well as theoretical understanding.

“We wanted to give students a career-oriented minor that also is grounded in the liberal arts traditions of Randolph College,” he said.

International Photo Contest Winners announced

Congratulations to the winners of our international photo contest!

Here are the winning photos.

Category: People

First Place: Mimansha Joshi '14, Nepal

Second Place: Ashesh Maharjan '13, A Nepali Boy Sitting on the side of the Road

Third Place: Pujan Shrestha '15, People Crossing the River in Nepal

Category: Places

First Place: Shuang "Sara" Li '14, Suzhou, China

Second Place: Qi Zhang '13, Qing Yan, Old Town on a Raining Day, China

Third Place: Mariah Reed '14, Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland

The annual photo contest is open to all students, faculty, and staff, and highlights cultures and places around the world.

You can see the winners from 2009 in the first edition of Randolph Magazine.