Diversity and Global Engagement

In an effort to welcome new students to campus and through the support of an anonymous gift to the university, Elon Hillel this summer launched a pilot project where a trio of student interns reached out to dozens of incoming freshmen with the goal of engaging them in the growing Jewish life on campus.

With about 1,425 first-year students, Elon’s Class of 2015 is the largest, most qualified and most diverse in the university’s history.

Elon faculty, staff and students have donated hundreds of school supplies that will benefit children in Alamance County and in Afghanistan.

A new undergraduate exchange program created this month between Elon University and Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey, will allow students to study abroad in a part of the world steeped with culture, history and art at a time when academic interest in the Middle East is blossoming.

Foreign language faculty members Nina Namaste and April Post conducted a July 12 session on Venezuela with children from local public schools who are in Spanish language immersion classes.

The Rev. Dr. Janet F. Fuller, who has dedicated her professional career to higher education ministry, most recently as chaplain for Hollins University in Roanoke, Va., has been selected to serve as the next chaplain at Elon University.

Elon University welcomed dozens of Alamance County high school scholars to campus midday Monday with a special College Coffee for students enrolled in the Elon Academy, an intensive three-year college access and success program for talented local teenagers with financial need or no family history of attending college.

Two Elon University professors and eight students spent several days in Zambia late this spring to help Habitat for Humanity with building homes for orphans and vulnerable children impacted by HIV/AIDS.