Scholarship and Academic Life

Junior Kendyl Messer is the inaugural recipient of the Daisy Pearl Pugh Urban Scholarship. The honor was presented during Tuesday’s CONE-vocation in the Cone University Center Lucas Room.
Rob Urban, the son of the scholarship’s namesake, announced the recipient, who is a nursing major and student employee. A Charlotte native, Messer is a building manager for the Cone Center. She noted that during her two years as a student worker, she has learned the importance of building relationships, and she said she values the leadership experience her job affords.

Aimee Parkison will share the story behind the captivating, imaginative book “The Innocent Party” at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 13, in the Cone University Center, McKnight Hall, as part of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Personally Speaking series. (Note this is a location change from the previously reported J. Murrey Atkins Library).

The Office of Academic Services offers free workshops to University advisors on a variety of topics. November’s offerings in the Academic Advisor Development Program include:

The Department of Africana Studies in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences will hold its 12th annual Africana Studies Symposium in April 2014. It will examine the “widening gaps of national and global inequality through the lens of moral economy.”

The UNC Charlotte chapter of Phi Kappa Phi recently received a Chapter of Merit Award, given to chapters that excel in recognizing and promoting academic excellence in all fields of higher education and engaging the community of scholars in service to others.

Three dance and theatre professors from London’s Kingston University will visit UNC Charlotte to collaborate on a planned student theatrical production. They will be working with Maryrica Lottman, associate professor of Spanish.
The proposed production will combine a 45-minute, English-language version of Cervantes’ “The Sultan’s Queen” with a 45-minute version of Shakespeare’s “Pericles, Prince of Tyre.”

The UNC Charlotte Mediation Team won four awards at the regional Mediation Tournament held in Gainesville, Ga., earlier this month. The team competed against challengers from 10 other institutions, including Western Carolina University and Georgia Southern University.

Rachel Plotnick, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies, has received the IEEE Life Members’ Prize in Electrical History – a top national honor.

UrbanEden, UNC Charlotte’s entry for the 2013 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, won the People’s Choice Award at the contest finals in California.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, UrbanEden “has a variety of sustainability features, such as thermal mass, passive solar and radiant energy, as well as unique technologies that demonstrated true innovation, including radiant geopolymer concrete walls, movable photovoltaic shading and a nighttime radiation emitter.

O. Akinlolu Ige, a leading African geochemist and archaeometrist, is serving a one-month appointment as a visiting research scholar in the Department of Africana Studies in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.