Share This Issue With a Friend

Headlines

MFA program faculty, alumni win writing awards

Bryson Gym damaged

Mountain Green Sustainability Conference – June 25

Field Day at the Berry Site

Summer highlights

Links

Inside Warren Wilson College

Events Calendar

Owl & Spade

Catalyst

The Story Behind

Alum Outcomes

WWC on YouTube

WWC Admission Crew Student Blog

WWC Emergency Information Line
(828) 258-4521

Bryson Gym damaged

On Thursday, May 22, part of Bryson Gym collapsed just hours before the weekly contra dance. No one was in the building at the time and no one was injured. Engineers have evaluated the structure and recommended a controlled collapse of the damaged section. The controlled collapse took place on June 19 (see video). After the building has been deemed safe, engineers will evaluate the structure further and recommend a course of action. Built in 1920, Bryson is one of the oldest wooden floor gymnasiums in Western North Carolina and one of the oldest buildings on campus. The gym is named for Holmes Bryson, an Asheville Farm School graduate and former mayor of Asheville.

Watch a video of the controlled collapse of a section of Bryson Gym’s roof.

Mountain Green Sustainability Conference – June 25

The Mountain Green Sustainability Conference features free presentations on sustainable community issues, Green Walkabouts highlighting sustainability projects on the Warren Wilson campus and more. Sarah Susanka, architect and author of The Not So Big Life and the Not so Big House will present free public presentation at 6:30 p.m. in the College Chapel.

Visit the conference website for more information.

Summer highlights

Garden Market
WWC Garden Markets are held Tuesdays from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. in the Garden Shed and Fridays from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. in front of Gladfelter Student Center.

Swannanoa Chamber Music Festival
The 2008 season brings a series of five exciting concerts to campus. Visit the SCMF website for more information on the current season.

Swannanoa Gathering
The Swannanoa Gathering is a series of week-long workshops in various folk arts held on campus in July and August. Visit the Swannanoa Gathering website for more information.

Commencement 2008 in pictures

New residence hall goes gold

One of the College’s two newest residence halls has achieved LEED Gold certification. The Village South residence hall, part of a two-building, 80-bed community that opened in August 2006, becomes the first dormitory in the state to achieve LEED certification. LEED is the rating system of the U.S. Green Building Council that sets standards for the “design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.”

Designed and built with extensive input from students, the Village features apartment-style dorms and an arts-and-crafts, environmentally responsible design. The LEED Gold rating certifies that Village South meets several green building criteria, including benchmarks for energy and water conservation; reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and waste send to landfills; and indoor environmental quality. The adjacent Village North dorm also seems likely to achieve LEED Gold.

Village South follows in the green footsteps of the Doug and Darcy Orr Cottage, which houses the Warren Wilson College admission and advancement offices. In 2006, Orr Cottage became the second building of any type in North Carolina to achieve LEED Gold certification and the first on a college or university campus in the state. By the end of this year, the College hopes to have a total of five LEED certified buildings, including the EcoDorm for which it is seeking Platinum certification – the loftiest LEED rating.

MFA program faculty, alumni win writing awards

Alumni and faculty with the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers continue to collect awards on various fronts. Faculty member Lan Samantha Chang and fiction alumna Vyvyane Loh have received 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship Awards. Loh becomes the program’s second Holden Minority Scholarship recipient to become a Guggenheim Fellow; Van Jordan was the first several years ago.

Some 43 Warren Wilson MFA faculty and alumni have received Guggenheim Fellowships in the past 13 years. MFA faculty member Tony Hoagland has received the second annual Jackson Poetry Prize, worth $50,000, awarded by Poets & Writers Inc. Another faculty member, T.M. McNally, recently was a finalist for the Pen-Faulkner award. Program founder Ellen Bryant Voigt's Messenger was recognized as a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Faculty members Linda Gregerson and Jim Shepard also were National Book Award finalists.

2008 summer MFA residency schedule, July 3-13

Field Day at the Berry Site

The Berry site is a large Mississippian site that dates to the Burke phase (15th and 16th centuries A.D.) and is believed to represent an ancestral Catawba Indian town. The site is believed to be the location of the native town of Joara, at which Juan Pardo built Fort San Juan in 1567 – 20 years before the “Lost Colony.” The 2008 archaeology field school, led by WWC archeology professor David Moore, will concentrate on a one-acre area where 16th century Spanish artifacts and the remains of five burned buildings have been located. The popular Field Day at the Berry Site will be held Saturday, July 12, and is open to the public.

See the website for more information.