Admissions

They carried clothes and laptops, ironing boards and plastic palm trees with miniature lights for décor. Mother Nature even kept the rain at bay. Hundreds of Elon University freshmen arrived on campus Friday for the start of their collegiate studies, with staff and faculty welcoming families who traveled to North Carolina from all corners of the country for Move-In Day 2009.

Elon University continues its position of national prominence in the 2010 “America’s Best Colleges” rankings released Aug. 20 by US News & World Report. Again this year, Elon is named by the magazine as the top “up-and-coming” university in the nation on a list of 77 schools that are “leading the pack in improvements and innovative changes.” And in a new US News ranking, Elon is ranked among the nation’s top schools for its strong faculty commitment to undergraduate teaching.

If the maker of Big Red and Juicy Fruit thinks its chewing gums have a monopoly on boosting your memory, it should think again. New work by Elon University faculty member Amy Overman and her undergraduate researchers show that gum itself isn’t special – any candy or oral activity probably works just as well at sharpening the mind.

For the seventh year in a row, Elon is ranked among the nation's top colleges and universities by The Princeton Review. The 2010 college guide, released July 28, ranks schools based on a survey of 122,000 students from across the nation.

The Eastern Music Festival returns to Elon University on June 30 with a Steinway Piano Gala to feature works by Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, Stravinsky, and Saint-Saëns. The McCrary Theatre performance at 8 p.m. will conclude with a crowd-pleasing multiple hands finale. The concert is planned in honor of George Troxler, former Dean of Cultural and Special Programs.

Elon is one of the nation's top seven best values for students who want to attend a university with outstanding academics at an affordable cost, says a former managing editor of the Fiske Guide to Colleges in an article on Reader's Digest.com.

Twenty Elon students are living and working in the Big Apple this month as part of the inaugural Summer in the City: Elon in New York program sponsored by the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business. Students are interning at major firms and nonprofits in the fields of finance, marketing, communications and entrepreneurship while residing in the Upper East Side of Manhattan and completing a professional development course.

The Hearst Foundation named Elon University senior Randy Gyllenhaal the best collegiate television journalist in the nation on June 6, 2009, at its annual awards ceremony in San Francisco.

The Class of 2009 collected more than $15,000 this year to fund the Senior Class Gift Campaign Study Abroad Grants, which will provide funding to students who are unable to study overseas because of personal financial situations. Class President Danielle Durst presented a check on May 23 to Elon University President Leo M. Lambert just prior to Commencement.