7/8/2021

Ferrum alumni enjoyed a Washington Nationals game (2018).

After more than a year of solitude due to COVID-19, Ferrum College alumni are now able to safely gather and reconnect per updated CDC guidance for fully vaccinated individuals.

“Ferrum alums are ready to get back together,” said Director of Alumni and Family Programs Tracy Holley. “We’ve all missed each other and are excited to put into action the plans we’ve been making over the last year.”

A list of upcoming alumni events follows. Some details are not finalized yet. Holley reminds everyone to continue watching the Alumni and Alumni Association Facebook pages for updates. 

Additionally, the College is pleased to introduce a Build Your Own Event (B.Y.O.E.) option, in which alums are invited to create their own events, and Alumni and Family Programs will help spread the word. “We want to get reconnected with each other and our community,” explained Holley. Interested participants should email Holley at alumni@ferrum.edu to get started. 

Upcoming Alumni Events:

July 15, noon: Alumni Lunch at Mac & Bob’s, Salem
July 15, 7:00 PM: Salem Red Sox Game
July 27, noon: Alumni Lunch at Golden Leaf Bistro, Danville
July 27, 6:30 PM: Greensboro Grasshoppers Game
July 21 – 25, all day: FloydFest21~Odyssey 
July 30 – 31, all day: Float Trip down James River
August 12, 7:00 PM: Alumni Virtual Wine Tasting with Beliveau
August 19, noon: Alumni Lunch at P.F. Chang’s, 9212 Stony Point Pkwy, in Richmond
August 19, 6:00 PM: Alumni Event at Topgolf, Richmond
September 17: Alumni Event in Hampton (more details to come)
September 18, 4:00 PM: CNU Tailgate & Game
October 8: Alumni Event in Bridgewater Area (more details to come)
October 15, 5:00 – 8:00 PM: Alumni Kick-Off at 202 Social House, Roanoke
October 16, 8:30 AM: Homecoming & ABOD Meeting
October 16, 11:00 AM: Golden Panthers Induction
October 23, 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM: Blue Ridge Folklife Festival
October 30, 11:00 AM: Alumni Awards and Sports Hall of Fame

7/8/2021

Ferrum College is pleased to announce that its campus is once again open to the public. This reopening comes after the May 2021 guidance from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which updated COVID-19 safety protocols for vaccinated individuals.

While the College is not requiring students, faculty, or staff to receive the vaccination at this time, President David Johns said that the institution is strongly encouraging it. Ferrum has joined the White House COVID-19 College Vaccination Challenge which seeks to vaccinate as many young adults as possible prior to them returning to campus for fall classes. This means that Ferrum has committed to taking the following action against the virus: engaging every student, faculty, and staff member by providing resources to get vaccinated; organizing its college community by implementing a vaccination plan; and delivering vaccine access for all.

“We will definitely host at least one flu and COVID-19 vaccination clinic on campus, ideally in early September, where students, faculty, staff, and the community can get either or both vaccinations,” explained Dean of Student Life and Pandemic Coordinator Nicole Lenez. “Or if it is easier for a community member to get vaccinated elsewhere, we’ll help them find a clinic. All they need to do is reach out to our Student Life office by calling (540) 365-4461 or emailing studentlife@ferrum.edu.”

More information about upcoming vaccination clinics will be available in the near future.

Additionally, the College is preparing for fall courses to begin on August 23. The semester will offer 14-week courses as well as two seven-week sessions, with all courses ending on November 23 prior to the Thanksgiving holiday break. The majority of courses will be delivered in the classroom (face-to-face) or through a hybrid method (50 percent virtual, 50 percent in-person). Ferrum faculty have completed an intensive online teaching certification to provide high-quality instruction both in the classroom and online.

On campus, physical distancing will be encouraged and sanitizing protocols will be maintained, including twice-daily disinfection of high-touch areas like light switches, bathrooms, and door handles. The College will not require masks indoors for individuals who have been vaccinated against COVID-19. Likewise, masks will not be mandated for anyone attending outdoor events unless three feet of distance cannot be maintained.

Athletics will return to normal competition this fall, with Panther football taking on Averett University on Ferrum’s campus on September 4 at 6 p.m. For more updates, check the official Ferrum College athletic website.

“The pandemic’s most pernicious work has been to separate us, keeping us from many of the things and people we enjoy,” wrote Johns in a campus-wide email. “What we learned so well over this past year will help us as we prepare for the year ahead: we are always stronger together.”

View Ferrum College’s plan for the 2021-22 academic year, and sign up to receive news and updates, on the Stronger Together website.

Learn more about the White House COVID-19 College Vaccination Challenge by visiting here.

7/7/2021

The following article was written by Director of Academic Outreach and Athletics Initiatives Tom Steele, who also directs the Ferrum Foundations program.

A group of Ferrum Foundations students.

Having a strong academic foundation is a cornerstone of success in college. The Ferrum Foundations program provides academic strategies that will ensure success at Ferrum College and beyond. Many first-year students come to college without the mindset and skill set required to transition from high school academics to the demands of the college-level classroom. Foundations helps bridge this academic gap. During the program, students learn academic strategies from successful upperclassmen, Ferrum professors, and staff members. The goal of Foundations is to make the transition to college life and academics less daunting.

Ferrum Foundations is a two-day experience. This year, students will arrive on August 16, 2021 to begin the program, which will take place August 17 and 18. Students will learn about developing relationships with professors and advisors, where to find academic success resources on campus, and how to employ strategies to reach their scholarly potential. The program is fast-paced, filled with useful information, and offers fun evening opportunities to round out the experience.

Rising senior Chelsea Zizzi ’22 participated in Foundations as a freshman and served as a peer mentor as a sophomore at Ferrum College. Chelsea shared, “I met some of my best friends through the Foundations program, who have been able to help me in both the academic world and the social world.” Making connections and developing success strategies are the focus of this two-day head start on success.

To learn more and to register for Ferrum Foundations, visit this webpage, which includes information about the program and an online application. For additional information, contact Tom Steele at tsteele@ferrum.edu.

5/28/2021

The Blue Ridge Institute & Museum at Ferrum College

Ferrum College has been named one of twenty-four Council of Independent College (CIC) institutions to participate in “Humanities Research for the Public Good” in 2021-22, a national initiative promoting student research and public engagement. This initiative focuses on showcasing library and museum collections held at private colleges and universities. Ferrum College will receive a grant of $10,000 to implement a year-long undergraduate research project in collaboration with the Blue Ridge Institute and Museum (BRIM) and the Franklin County Public Library.

“Independent colleges are stronger when they share their resources with their communities and so are their communities,” said CIC President Richard Ekman. “Those resources often include significant archival or library collections that can illuminate issues of real public importance.”

Ferrum’s project, titled “Preserving and Sharing Old and New Stories from the James Taylor Adams Collection and the Public,” will make more accessible the collection of Appalachian folklore and ballads organized by James Taylor Adams during the 1930s and 40s. 

In the early 1930s, Adams, a writer from Wise County, Virginia, recognized the importance of preserving Appalachian folklore and ballads. He partnered with the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1936 to make carbon copies of local lore and planned for a book publication. After the WPA unexpectedly shut down in 1943, the book never happened. Adams died in 1954 and his papers were given to Clinch Valley College (now UVA’s College at Wise), where they sat in boxes, unorganized and abandoned, until Ferrum College researchers received permission to bring a copy to the College in the 1980s. The material, measured by archivists at twelve linear feet, was then organized in categories and stored in the archive at the BRIM. Bethany Worley, current director of the BRIM, participated in that work early in her career and now looks forward to making the collection more widely available to researchers and the public.

In the fall of 2021, the BRIM, with the help of several Ferrum College students, will begin work to digitize the Adams Collection, which will expand the BRIM website and improve public access to folktales and ballads from Southwestern Virginia. The students will learn about history and maintenance of records, including the skills needed to scan or retype fragile pages, catalog items, edit web pages, prepare for live storytelling workshops, and more.

“This project provides a wonderful experiential opportunity for our humanities students. It fits very well with our new minor in Public History and Museum Studies,” said Professor of English Tina Hanlon, who plans to work on this project during her sabbatical next year. (Explore Ferrum’s history program here.)

In 2022, the Franklin County Public Library will begin hosting public storytelling workshops to introduce locals to the Adams Collection material and teach them storytelling methods. Professor Emeritus of Theatre Arts Rex Stephenson will lead the workshops. He has used archived tales from the James Taylor Adams Collection to dramatize Appalachian folktales since the 1970s. The grant proposal describes the workshops as offering “live storytelling to link archive copies of folktales from Southwestern Virginia with popular dramatic adaptations that have been performed in this region for decades, and encourage the public to collect, preserve and share their own stories.”

The CIC’s grant selection process was extremely selective. Anne M. Valk, historian and executive director of the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning at the CUNY Graduate Center, leads the program.

“I was impressed by the good work that faculty and staff are already doing to support community engagement and humanities research,” said Valk. “So many independent colleges are committed to public-facing scholarship and exploring the hidden potential of their collections.”

Learn more about Appalachian folktales and literature by visiting the AppLit: Resources for Readers and Teachers of Appalachian Literature Facebook page, or the AppLit website.