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Aleksandar Spasovski to play on national team

Carpe Phone!

“Water bear” research continues in Smokies

Attention Alumni

WWC receives CHILL OUT award

Featured Events

Peter Pan at Kittredge Theatre

Earth Day Celebration

Sam Ervin biographer to read April 29 at Warren Wilson College

Make it your business to understand climate change.

2008 Commencement

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Events Calendar

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(828) 258-4521

Carpe Phone!

Carpe Phone! (seize the phone!) was the theme of Phonathon 2008 that wrapped up on April 3. Student callers raised $60,068 in pledges from alumni and friends for the Warren Wilson College Fund. This support is so important for scholarships, the Work Program and other immediate College needs. Each year, Phonathon provides the invaluable opportunity for current students (that is, future alumni) to connect with alumni and friends of the College. Today’s students are always amazed to learn about former work crews (such as the laundry crew) and to hear stories about the real people for whom buildings are named. Students also talk with alumni about what they are doing after graduation and to learn about what brought them to Warren Wilson.

On behalf of our callers, thanks to everyone who spoke with our students and who have supported the College this year. If we missed you by phone, you can still make a gift online or by calling (828) 771-2088 or toll-free 1-866-992-2586.

“Water bear” research continues in Smokies

In the February issue of the e-newsletter, we reported the good news that biology/environmental studies professor Paul Bartels was named the Discover Life in America (DLIA) educator of the year. Recently, Dr. Bartels received a grant from DLIA to continue his research on “water bears” (phylum Tardigrada) in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Dr. Bartels is among the scientists involved in the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory, a study of all living things in the park. His focus, the water bear–is a microscopic, multicelled animal that flourishes in the thin film of water that covers mosses, lichens and liverworts. The grant, funding the full amount of his $5,000 proposal, is one of several he has received from Discover Life in America for his work in the Great Smokies.

Attention Alumni

Did you graduate from Warren Wilson between 1969 and 2003? If so, did you complete the Graduate Survey emailed to you? Career Services, Alumni Relations, and Institutional Research have developed a questionnaire to gather information about what you are doing and your satisfaction with the preparation you received from your Warren Wilson experience. Plus, you'll have the opportunity to tell us if there are ways you would like to connect with current students or other alumni.

If you did not get the email (check your spam box just in case), alert Bates Canon at bcanon@warren-wilson.edu or (828) 771-3033 to make sure your responses are included. Results will be shared with the Warren Wilson community.

Career Services online

WWC receives CHILL OUT award

Warren Wilson has won the Runners Up award in the National Wildlife Federation’s Chill Out: Campus Solutions to Global Warming nationwide competition. This award program honors the U.S. schools that are ahead of their time in addressing global warming and being highly creative in doing so. “Every one of our Chill Out winners deserves an Oscar for the example they have set,” says Julian Keniry, director of campus and community leadership for the National Wildlife Federation. “Campuses nationwide are demonstrating that we can combat global warming, protect habitat, and save money at the same time. These campuses are actually doing what the science says should be done to reduce the threat of global warming.”

The award was given to Warren Wilson for its comprehensive campus climate plan, including its commitment to greenhouse gas emission reductions and overall sustainability of the College. The College’s climate protection plan is a campus and community-wide effort, including a greenhouse gas emissions (GGE) reduction partnership with the City of Asheville–the first of its kind in the nation.

More on the award

Featured Events

Peter Pan at Kittredge Theatre

The Warren Wilson College Theatre will stage James M. Barrie’s much-beloved classic children’s play, Peter Pan, April 24-27, under the direction of graduating senior Charlotte Lawrence of St. Helena Island, S.C. The performances in Kittredge Theater begin at 8 p.m., except for a Sunday matinee starting at 2 p.m.

The cast of 25 Warren Wilson students and staff members–including Dean of Work Ian Robertson–will be using Barrie’s original 1904 script rather than the later musical adaptation. Lawrence calls the original Peter Pan a “play of clashing realities” and says that she and the cast and crew “are communing with the spirit of Barrie not only to produce the rarely seen original drama, but also to understand and explore the relationships between these complex characters.”

A portion of the proceeds from the production will be contributed to a local children’s charity, in keeping with the long history of Peter Pan supporting children in need. In 1929, Barrie donated all rights and royalties to the Great Ormond Street Hospital, which to this day continues to benefit from his generosity. In the same vein, the cast and crew of Peter Pan will be holding various events in an effort to raise funds benefiting children in Western North Carolina. Audience members may find themselves “shaken down” by Pirates and Lost Boys before, during and after the show.

Tickets: $10 general admission, $5 for children, area students, seniors and WWC employees and alumni. Reservations: (828) 771-3040 or theatre@warren-wilson.edu.

WWC Theatre online

Make it your business to understand climate change.

Come hear Tom Peterson, one of the Nobel Prize winning, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists present an “Introduction to Climate Change Science” Thursday, May 1, 4 p.m., in Canon Lounge. Dr. Peterson is a research meteorologist at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville who created the center’s global land surface data set used to quantify long-term global climate change. He was a lead author on the Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report.

Info: Margo Flood, mflood@warren-wilson.edu or (828) 771.2002

For more events, see the Warren Wilson College Events Calendar.

Sights and sounds of Work Day

Work Day 2008 could not have been favored by better weather, demonstrating once again the Work Day Committee’s impressive attention to every detail. As usual, hundreds of willing workers gathered in front of Gladfelter before being herded to the grassy bank below the building for panoramic group photos. They all came together again in the late afternoon for picnic, music, awards and door prizes at Morris’ Community Pavilion. In the hours between, students, faculty and staff scattered across campus to work on everything from planting native grasses to building pavilions.

Work Day is always a visual feast, but sometimes the sounds and words are just as compelling. There was poetry: group leader Sadie Adams ’09 inspiring her workers by reading Mary Oliver’s “Tasting the Wild Grapes.” Prose: Forestry/Environmental Studies Professor David Ellum, overseeing the removal of exotic invasive plants, noting “Rule No. 1–if you’re not sure what it is, ask.” Song: “We are the mulchers…the mighty, mighty mulchers,” belted out by, well, the mulchers. And, of course, the usual whoops and hollers reverberating around campus, from Gladfelter to the pond to Morris’ Pavilion.

Why do we do it, aside from an excuse to call off classes and enjoy the beauty of an Appalachian spring? As Dean of Work Ian Robertson explained in a campus email, Work Day is “the collective story of shoring up river banks, cleaning up after tornadoes and hurricanes, and celebrating community with sweat equity.” That says it pretty nicely...

—Ben Anderson

See photo albums from Work Day
Gallery 1
Gallery 2

Aleksandar Spasovski to play on national team

As basketball madness was brewing across the nation, a Warren Wilson freshman got a call from his mother from his hometown of Skopje, Macedonia. Mrs. Lence Spasovski had just received a personal visit from the coach of the Macedonian U20 National Team inviting her son Aleks to be one of twenty-four to train for the European National Championships in Romania this summer. Practice for the National team will start as soon as he gets home in June.

His teammates will be guys he grew up playing in club teams across the country. “Basketball is getting really big in Macedonia,” Aleks said. During June, he will live at home and train two to three times a day. In July, he will travel with the team for ten days, playing other countries in friendly matches in preparation for the national tournament. “Twenty four players that have been picked will train together,” he explained. “Twelve will be cut and twelve will officially play in the European Championship in August.”

Aleks feels confident he will be a part of the final cut as he played with the U16 national team before he moved to North Carolina to attend Veritas Christian Academy in Hendersonville. He had the chance at that time to play full time with the younger national team, but decided to finish school and compete in the states instead. At WWC Aleks played shooting point guard this season and averaged 24 points a game on a squad with only two extra men on the bench. After finishing his degree in business at Warren Wilson, he hopes to return to Macedonia and play professionally.

—Molly McMillan

Earth Day Celebration

Warren Wilson’s 2008 Earth Day Celebration takes place Saturday, April 26, in and around Bryson Gym. See what’s in store at the celebration

Sam Ervin biographer to read April 29 at Warren Wilson College

Karl E. Campbell, associate professor of history at Appalachian State University and 1978 Warren Wilson alumnus, will read from his book, Senator Sam Ervin: Last of the Founding Fathers, on April 29, 4 p.m., in Canon Lounge. Dr. Campbell will be available after the reading to sign copies of his book. Ervin, a constitutional expert who paradoxically defended civil liberties but opposed civil rights, is best known for chairing the Senate Watergate hearings while serving as senior U.S. senator from North Carolina. More information: Sarah Thuesen, sthuesen@warren-wilson.edu or (828) 771-3083.

2008 Commencement

Warren Wilson College’s 2008 Commencement will be held Saturday, May 17, on the lawn of Sunderland Hall. Steve Curwood, host and executive producer of NPR’s popular show, “Living on Earth,” will deliver the address. Curwood created the pilot for the weekly environmental news program, distributed by Public Radio International, in 1990. The show has aired regularly since April 1991. “Living on Earth” currently is broadcast on about 300 public radio stations, reaching about 80 percent of the U.S. One hundred eighty five undergraduate degree candidates are slated to receive their degrees–a record number for the College.