New videos profiling Roanoke seniors were debuted at the college welcome during orientation this year.  The videos provide a glimpse into the lives of these students and their experiences so far at Roanoke, which shows new students what life might be like here and what they can achieve. The videos were shot and directed by Steve Mason ’91.

Here are the videos:

Justin Tuma – Business Major & Economics Minor

Brittany Harrison – Music/Spanish Double Major

Megan Semmelman – Sociology Major with Communications Concentration

Facilities and grounds at Roanoke College have seen some change this summer. As students prepare to return to the classroom, there are even new ones of those to see. Here’s a quick tour of campus changes:

Lucas Hall reopens this fall after an impressive makeover. The classic character of the structure remains intact while the renovation expanded the building from 13,449 square feet to over 26,000. On certification, Lucas will be the College’s first LEED project, signifying the campus’s commitment to sustainability.

The Sutton Commons has a new pizza and pasta station. These favorite food items were mentioned most often when students, faculty and staff were surveyed last semester. The expansion includes a stone hearth pizza oven and space for cooking demonstrations.

In other areas of the Colket Center, glass windows and doors now have “frosting” to enhance privacy for those in programs and meetings. The College logo is featured.

Antrim Chapel boasts new doors and a redesigned stairway. The doors, handmade in Kentucky, feature beautiful custom leaded and beveled glass and are constructed of solid red oak. The stairway, which is wider and opens directly onto the High Street sidewalk, was constructed by Roanoke staff members and is a gift of the class of 2010.

Enhancements in parking areas include the paving of the lot at Monterey House and a change in the parking lot at the CAR residences. The space at CAR is gravel for the short term while the College prepares for a next residence hall building. A new lot will be built this fall at the site of the old tennis courts above Bast track.

The tennis courts have been relocated to Elizabeth Campus.

Roanoke College just recently surpassed 4,000 fans on Facebook and gave a t-shirt to our 4,000th fan.  However, we are thinking bigger for 5,000!

To celebrate, we are going to give away a new Apple iPad to a random fan once the College reaches 5,000.  Unfortunately, Roanoke faculty and staff aren’t eligible.  We also will give away a $50 bookstore gift certificate to the actual 5,000th fan.

So, click “Like” on Roanoke’s Facebook page and spread the word because the quicker Roanoke gets to 5,000, the quicker one of our fans, even someone who has been a fan previously, will win the iPad.

www.facebook.com/roanoke

Dr. Robert Schultz, Roanoke College’s John P. Fishwick Professor of English, will appear at a book event at the Library of Congress on August 10. He and co-author James Shell will be discussing their book, We Were Pirates: A Torpedoman’s Pacific War. Robert Hunt, 92, the torpedoman whose recollections are the basis for the book, also will appear.

Schultz and Shell will make brief presentations on the book and will introduce the remarkable wartime career of Hunt, who served aboard the USS Tambor submarine for 12 consecutive war patrols. Hunt witnessed the beginning of the war from his submarine when the Japanese struck Wake Island’s U.S. base just hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He played a key role in his vessel’s fateful encounter with Japanese heavy cruisers during the pivotal Battle of Midway and survived a near-fatal depth-charge attack at the bottom of the East China Sea. For his role on that mission, Hunt received a commendation letter from Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz.

After introducing Hunt, Schultz will interview him about his experiences; a question and answer period will follow. Schultz, Shell and Hunt will sign books at the conclusion.

The Library of Congress event will be held Tuesday, August 10, from noon – 1 p.m. in the Pickford Theater on the third floor of the James Madison building.

Later that day, Hunt, who lives in Decorah, Iowa, will be honored at the office of Iowa Senator Tom Harkin.

For more information about the book event, call: (202) 707-8314.

The Library of Congress has a web page on Robert Hunt’s experience, including a video interview with him drawn from an interview DVD that Schultz produced.

More information on the book, the DVD and book-related events is available at Schultz’s website.

The Elena Kagan confirmation proceedings have caught the attention of Dr. Todd Peppers, the Henry H. and Trudye H. Fowler Professor of Public Affairs at Roanoke College. He has long held an interest in the role law clerks play in our nation’s judicial system and, in a recent op-ed piece in The National Law Journal, he discusses that role and the importance of considering it during confirmation proceedings for judicial nominees.

In “Junior Justices?” Peppers notes that, while a nominee’s own clerking background is a common subject of questioning, little attention is paid to what policies a nominee intends to adopt in the hiring and employment of law clerks within his or her chamber.

Peppers points out that “Supreme Court law clerks make recommendations regarding certiorari petitions [i.e., which cases will be heard], prepare the justices for oral argument, conduct legal research and write and edit opinions.” Given those responsibilities, he says that “it is surprising that the Senate Judiciary Committee has never thoroughly discussed the topic of law clerk hiring and utilization practices during Supreme Court confirmation hearings.”

He feels that a nominee should be questioned about the institutional rules that he or she intends to adopt regarding the selection and employment of law clerks — and whether these rules will protect against the clerks wielding undue levels of influence in chambers.

Peppers is the author of Courtiers of the Marble Palace: the Rise and Influence of the Supreme Court Law Clerk (Stanford University Press 2006). He also co-edited the forthcoming book Behind the Bench: Portraits of United States Supreme Court Law Clerks and Their Justices (University of Virginia Press 2010).

Click here to read the entire editorial.

-Written by Sharon Nanz ’09

Roanoke College’s chapel underwent something of a makeover this spring. The chapel boasts new doors and a redesigned stairway. The doors, handmade in Kentucky, feature beautiful custom leaded and beveled glass and are constructed of solid red oak.

The stairway, which is wider and opens directly onto the High Street sidewalk, was constructed by Roanoke staff members and is a gift of the class of 2010. Bob Shupe, who works on all the College’s signature brick walkways, provided the leadership for the new stairway.

Built in 1970, the chapel was a generous gift from Mr. and Mrs. A. Blair Antrim in memory of their son Charles Massie Antrim, a 1961 Roanoke College graduate.

Dr. Bill Hill may be best known around campus for his years teaching political science or for his strong leadership at the helm of one of several programs, including the Henry H. Fowler program. What some don’t realize is that he is a talented artist as well.

Hill’s preferred medium is watercolor, although he also paints in oil and acrylic. In addition, he has been known to combine his political and artistic interests in the creation of political cartoons. For many years, he teamed up with now-retired English professor Dr. Denis Lape to teach an interdisciplinary course, “American Humor in Literature and Politics.”

Currently, there is an opportunity to view Hill’s talent first-hand. One of his paintings is on display at the WVTF Art Gallery as part of the radio station’s 2010 Juried Art Show. Hill created Taos Doorway using watercolors over gesso (a plaster base applied to the watercolor paper). Based on a scene he saw in Taos Pueblo, N.M., the work is one of 48 pieces by regional artists that are on display at WVTF’s Broadcast Center throughout the month of July.

“I have a real love affair with the American Southwest,” Hill says. “I’m also interested in Native Americans, so many of my paintings deal with that subject.”

Hill says he is delighted that his piece is included in the show. “It’s only since my semi-retirement that I’ve been able to spend more time with my painting. It’s good to get some recognition and encouragement.”

This Friday, July 16, WVTF is hosting a reception from 5 – 9 p.m. Free to the public, the event will showcase the art and also will feature live music and refreshments. Guests may vote on their favorite pieces for the People’s Choice Award. That and other awards will be announced at the reception.

Many of the works are for sale, although Dr. Hill’s is not. Proceeds from the event will benefit WVTF Public Radio and Radio IQ. If you miss the reception, you can view the art show Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. through July 31. Visit www.wvtf.org for directions.

Roanoke trustee Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo ’78 is in the news for her connection to widely-reported sightings of a giant flying iguana in Fort Worth, Texas. The bizarre voyage was actually a helicopter transport of a 2,600 pound and 40-foot sculpture to a rooftop at the Fort Worth Zoo.

‘Iggy,’ as the sculpture is named, was created 32 years ago for an art exhibition by Cassullo’s artist friend Bob ‘Daddy-O’ Wade. After the exhibition, it was transported to the famed Lone Star Café in New York City, where it perched upon its roof for 13 years. When the café closed, the sculpture was bought by a Virginia couple, who moved it to their horse farm and “put it out to pasture” on the training course. Eventually, when the farm was sold, Wade bought back his creation and contacted Cassullo, whose private foundation funded Iggy’s restoration. Cassullo found a home for Iggy at the Manhattan Youth Community Center on Pier 25 on the Hudson River.

A few years later, Iggy had to move again due to renovations at the pier. He was purchased by the husband of Fort Worth Zoo board member Ramona Bass and stored in a barn for a number of years. When the Fort Worth Zoo developed its new herpetarium, The Museum of Living Art, in 2007, Bass and Wade knew that Iggy had a reason to surface from retirement, especially given his resemblance to species inside the museum. Iggy was recently spruced up once more so that he could take his current post to promote the zoo’s new herpetarium. Although it’s been some time since Cassullo first rescued Iggy, Wade says, in The Dallas Morning News, “Without Joanne, the iguana would be sitting atop a coal mine somewhere.”

Fanciful subjects seem to be a favorite of both Cassullo’s and Wade’s. Cassullo donated the John Margolies photographs of quirky roadside architecture that adorn the Colket Center walls, and the Olin Gallery owns a Wade portrait of Roanoke art critic, the late Ann Weinstein, whimsically portrayed as a cowgirl atop a white horse.

If asked to describe a college campus in the summer, the typical description would probably be something along the lines of “empty.” Who wants to be studying (or even in a place reminiscent of studying) when the sun is shining, right? Wrong. Here at Roanoke College, even as July is nearing, more is happening on campus than one might think for the summer months.

Students are completing internships in the area and taking classes on campus. Summer Scholars are conducting intensive research while working with faculty members. There is undergraduate research taking place in the science labs in Trexler and Life Science. Student employees are working in many places on campus. Prospective Maroons are touring campus in the beautiful weather, with devoted Maroon Ambassadors working to show off our classic campus, even in the summer.

Not only is the campus busy with students having productive summers, it’s busy with renovations and remodeling that will welcome the entire student body come the fall. Lucas Hall is scheduled to reopen in the fall of 2010, the first of the buildings on campus to become more environmentally friendly. (Did you know that so far, Roanoke College and R.L. Price have recycled 179 tons of construction debris from the Lucas Hall project following U.S. Green Building Protocol, which is equivalent to the conservation of 3,399 mature trees?) A pizza and pasta station is coming to the Commons, promising a brick oven for pizza that is sure to please the appetites of many at the start of the school year. The grounds crew continues to work diligently day in and day out to make campus beautiful for summer students, campus visitors and College employees.

It doesn’t sound like things are too quiet here, does it?

This is good news for students and parents alike. A happy thought for parents who often joke that the more that is paid for a college education, the less students actually attend: your kids can be on campus in the summer months, too. For students, little did you know the best four years of your life can actually take place year-round.

submitted by Megan Semmelman ’11

Though he’s never used it, retired Roanoke College professor Bob Stauffer has a theory about Twitter. Stauffer, who collects old postcards, has begun to think of his relics as old-school tweets. After all, they were short bursts of information often updating another on a person’s whereabouts and recent activities.

The economist likens postcards to a “rudimentary form of texting,” but he doesn’t use text messaging either. He does use e-mail and eBay, which he employs to enhance his postcard collection. “Back in the 1900s, you could send a picture and a short message for a penny,” he points out, adding “Who needs a phone to take pictures and send text?”

Stauffer says the “golden age of postcards” was 1900-1920, when most people didn’t have phones in their homes and calls were very expensive.  Old postcards, he says, often mention a letter to be sent soon and frequently seem to have been used for suggesting meetings at particular times and places, much like today’s text messages.

Stauffer has been “seriously” collecting since 1980 but began his extensive postcard collection, which numbers in the thousands, even earlier. He got started while looking for the work of his grandfather, who designed greeting cards. Most interesting, he says, are postcards from before the 1930s. Stauffer says they are more diverse and have a higher quality of photography and printing than later versions.

“The most interesting from an historical standpoint are cards from small towns, real photo cards of interesting scenes or events, and pictures of places that no longer exist,” Stauffer says. For example, in Salem scenes, postcards of the long gone Lakeside Amusement park are very collectible.

Antique malls, eBay and even postcard shows are major sources for Stauffer’s collection. So, this year, as you gear up for summer vacation, think about sending postcards instead of texts and tweets to keep loved ones updated on your adventures. You’ll be using “old style,” Stauffer would say (not to mention doing the postal service a favor in the process).