Greek Life at Ferrum College

By Anna B., Panther Blogger

Boredom is a choice at Ferrum College. Organizations and clubs are rich with a numerous amount of activities for each student. I am currently Student Government Association President; a founder, Vice President, and a sister of the local sorority Zeta Chi Epsilon (ΖΧΕ); a cheerleader; and a member of Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE).

There are four sororities and four fraternities on Ferrum College’s campus. I pledged into a local sorority in the fall of 2010. The Greek community at Ferrum College is tight knit, and we are each different in our own ways but one in the same. Greek life does not possess the image everyone perceives. We enjoy having fun with each other as well as enjoying the time and opportunity to help our community. We have a certain amount of community service hours that we have to acquire, and it is a great feeling to know we exceed those amounts.

Leigh Ann & I. Best friends, roommates, ZXE sisters.

Being a part of Zeta Chi Epsilon has not only helped me with my leadership skills but also with networking skills, communication skills, and more. My ΖΧΕ sisters and Theta Chi Epsilon (ΘΧΕ) brothers are my family away from home, and we always have each other’s back. 

ΖΧΕ sisters with ΘΧΕ brothers

Whether it is hanging out one afternoon for a small cookout, getting together on a Friday night, doing community service on a beautiful morning, cheering for each other during an intramural sporting event, or simply studying in the Academic Resource Center (ARC) in the Library, we love spending time together! They truly are a great family to have and to be able to come back and visit after I graduate!

Dance, Dance!

BY VICTORIA, PANTHER BLOGGER

When you become a student at Ferrum College, there are a set number of classes that you have to take in order to meet your liberal core requirements. For example, every student must take classes to meet speaking intensive, writing intensive, fine arts, English, Bible-based course, Religion/Philosophy, Fine Arts, Mathematics, Natural Science, Literature, History, Social Science requirements, and an Activity Course.

In order to meet the requirement for my activity course credit, I took a dance class that was offered at Ferrum. Classes such as team sports, rock-climbing and many others are also offered as options to fill this requirement. Dance is available for any Ferrum student to participate in, even if they have never danced previously. The class is held one night a week for about two hours, so it does not have a huge impact on a student’s schedule. The class requires that the students participate in a dance recital that occurs at the end of the semester. Each student will be in a large group dance with all of the other students in their class that the teacher choreographs.

Students will also make small group dances in which they choose their song and choreograph the entire dance. My group chose to do a dance to “I Write Sins, Not Tragedies” by Panic! At The Disco. Our dance included doing the Jive, a backflip stunt, and even the famous Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Being in the dance recital was a great experience, and I recommend that anyone who is interested in dance or who wants to have a lot of fun to take the class.

Showtime!

BY JORDAN, PANTHER BLOGGER

I love the Theatre Arts department at Ferrum!

I have met some awesome and talented people. The department also has great professors, such as Wayne Bowman and Sue Spataro. I have had the majority of my classes with them, and they have taught me so many awesome things!

I played Elizabeth in our Frankenstein performance

The plays and concerts we put on show just how hard we work. This year, I was involved with Frankenstein, Seussical The Musical, Collegiates Choir, and Handbells. They have been so much fun, and we all did a fantastic job with every performance.

I was a bird girl in The Seussical

Watch a video slideshow from our Seussical performance:

I just love the theatre and music here! :)

My Adventures in Spain!

BY VANESSA, PANTHER BLOGGER

Thanks to my Ferrum Spanish professor, Dr. Suppes, I applied and got accepted into Spanish program at the University of Alicante. When I studied abroad in Spain for a month this past summer, I had many adventures and the time of my life! As I said in one of my previous posts, I went with the Center of Cross-Cultural Studies and was able to meet other study-abroad students from different colleges and universities. Below are some more photos I took while in Spain.

This is a picture of me and classmates in our Gastronomy Class! 

We were able to go a restaurant in Alicante and learn to cook typical dishes from Spain. I learned how to make “Tortilla de Patata.” I’m sure you all know what a tortilla is! Well, this dish is made up of potatoes, onions, and eggs. It’s delicious. Then there is “Paella,” which is a rise-based dish; you can make Paella with meat, chicken, or fish. “Tapas” are finger foods. It’s a slice of bread with chicken, beef, pork, vegetables or pretty much anything you want on it.

Me, slicing some tomatoes…I am quite the chef!

The real Chef cooking Paella! YUM!

Benidorm, Spain – one of the many towns I visited in Spain.
It’s in the province of Alicante and has AMAZING Beaches. It was, by far, my favorite!

Me in front of the Cathedral in Valencia: it was absolutely beautiful. 

Valencia was rich in culture!

Photo of my friends and I on the public bus that we had to take each day to go to the university. It was our last day of classes, and we thankfully had the bus all to ourselves! Bittersweet day!

Project "Butterfly" Underway

In February 2012 Ferrum College signed an agreement to implement an Ellucian (formerly Datatel+SGHE) product named Colleague, which is an enterprise customer relationship management (CRM) product.

A CRM product uses a database to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes. In Ferrum's case this means admissions, financial aid, finance, HR, advancement, registration, and student services will transition to one database and one system — thereby reducing costs and resources to maintain the College's many databases that are currently fragmented and out-dated.

We in human resources are delighted to be implementing Ellucian's product at Ferrum College! We recently visited Vikki Ingram, director of human resources for Bridgewater College, to see first-hand what Ellucian means for that HR department. What we saw confirmed for us that this Ellucian implementation will be well worth the effort. We were amazed at the efficiency with which everyday HR, payroll, and benefits processes were performed and the ease of access Ellucian allows employees to their own information. We came away eager to have our new Ellucian system up and running to make our employees’ HR experiences easier, less confusing, and more user-friendly. We believe you’ll come to see Ellucian as a very valuable tool, as we believe it will be for us in HR.

—MA Whisenant, director of human resources

I am excited about the Ellucian conversion because it will finally allow us to completely integrate all our information management at Ferrum. The IT staff have done a wonderful job of meeting our needs by doing programming and developing the i-Assistant interface, but our current database technology simply doesn’t meet our needs any more. The conversion will be a LOT of work for staff around campus, but from what I have seen the Colleague component of Ellucian will be a powerful one-stop shop for all the ways in which we work with applicants, students, and alumni at Ferrum. 

  — Dr. Jason Powell, dean, School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics

Module leaders named the project "Butterfly" —  a substantial project, scheduled to take 20 months to complete.  

Click to see larger image

Module leaders meet every Thursday from 3:30 – 4:30 pm. Members include:

• Betsy Smith
• Bryan Hantman 
• Delia Heck 
• Diana Yates (also core team member)
• Felicia Woods 
• Gilda Woods (also core team member)
• Heather Hollandsworth (also core team member)
• Jason A. Jones (also core team member)
• Jason Powell
• Jolene D. Hamm (also core team member)
• Kathi Renick (also core team member)
• Lawrence Chernick 
• MA Whisenant (also core team member)
• Shawn P. Shirley (also core team member)
• Timothy Belcher 
• Vicky A. Robertson (also core team member)
• Virginia Jones 
• Yvonne Walker (also core team member)

The "core team" meets every Thursday from 10:00 am – 12:00 noon.

Ferrum SIFE Team Wins Again: 23rd Year!

BY ANNA, PANTHER BLOGGER

Need a resume-builder? Students in Free Enterprise is the perfect solution for community service, resume-building, finding internships and possibly a job offer. SIFE was introduced to Ferrum College 23 years ago by Dr. Demetri Tsanacas. He has traveled with his SIFE team to the Regional Competition for 23 years and has won consecutively since the very beginning.

2011-2012 SIFE Speaking Team at the competition

This year, I had the privilege of being a member on the speaking team along with 7 other students from the Business Department at Ferrum College. We traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina to speak about the projects that we administered over the past year. We had 25 minutes to speak and five minutes for questions. With six of us presenting and two of us running the PowerPoint, our presentation raised the bar for competing teams.

Pictured here are some selected students of the SIFE team who traveled to Charlotte with our speaking team.

Me holding the regional trophy

We won our 23rd trophy as the USA Regional Competition Champions, and we will travel to Kansas City, Missouri from May 22nd – May 24th to compete in the USA National Exposition!