Profound

A large stack of books adorned with the word “profound” popped up overnight in the Proctor Library toward the end of the spring semester. In less than one day, students Abby Pratchios, Shannon Lunsford, Beth Johnston and Tyler Tremellen constructed the piece for their Typography class. What’s even more astonishing is that the word “profound” was made entirely of yellow pushpins.

Photos by Zach Thomas, ’00

Theatre in the Rotunda

Associate Professor Andrea McCook’s Shakespeare class got a taste of performing “in the round” when they used Flagler’s Rotunda as a substitute for the famous Globe Theatre.

Photos by Zach Thomas, ’00

Chalk it Up

On April 2, graphic design and fine art students hosted a sidewalk art festival in conjunction with St. Augustine’s First Friday Art Walk. Walking by was like visiting an outdoor studio with students lying on the ground, kneeling in the street and doing whatever they could to finish their work. The result was a multi-colored, block-long showcase of some outstanding student art.

Flash Mob

Students and tourists blocked Sevilla Street when they stopped to see what was happening on the West Lawn on April 1. More than 50 Flagler employees participated in a flash mob, dancing to a choreographed number led by Flagler student Jillian McClure. It was all part of the college’s new logo campaign and an April Fools’ Day surprise.

24-Hour Library

When the Proctor Library started staying open 24 hours a day during Flagler’s exam week, we wondered what the scene would be like at 3 a.m. and who would be up at that hour. So we sent photographer Zach Thomas (a Flagler graphic design alum who spent many of his own late nights working in the library’s graphic design lab) to check it out. What he found was a bustling, stress-filled library all throughout the night.

Photos by Zach Thomas, ’00

Senior Kaitlyn Edwards tied for fourth place with a 15-over 157. She shot an 8-over 79 in the final round and recorded one birdie and 11 pars. Edwards, who qualified for the NCAA Division II South Regional Championships, finished 42nd in that tournament.

Edwards, a first-team All-Peach Belt Conference selection, closed out a tremendous career at Flagler. She averaged a team-best 79.5 strokes per round and had a pair of top-five finishes and four top 10s.

This is the second time Flagler has walked away with a Peach Belt tournament title in its first year of conference play. Women’s volleyball also won a tournament title this past fall.

Her piece, written for an advanced reporting class and run in Flagler’s online student newspaper, The Gargoyle, chronicled her search through local dumpsters for food that is still edible if cleaned properly.

For her story, Walker learned proper “dumpster-diving etiquette” from the volunteer organization Food Not Bombs and ate solely from the trash for several weeks. Dumpster-divers recover food that is thrown out to make fresh, hot vegan and vegetarian meals to be served in outside public spaces, primarily for the homeless.

Walker said she became engulfed in the experience. “It became a thrilling hunt, and I was immediately flooded with enthusiasm as more and more edible food was found,” she wrote in the story.

The piece was for Assistant Professor of Communication Helena Särkiö’s class. Särkiö said she likes to push her students to take on out-of-the-box assignments. “I want them to experience something that they have never experienced before,” she said.

It was part of a two-week study-abroad trip through Europe that followed the path of Allied forces from England to the liberation of Berlin. The trip hit especially close to home for senior art major Mary Harvey. Both of her grandfathers fought in World War II, including one who landed in Normandy.

Harvey blogged throughout the trip, and you can read more about her experience at http://WWII.flaglermagazine.com.

Wrisley has several other accomplishments under her belt as well. Not only did she maintain a 4.0 grade point average, but her paper, “Optimistically Embracing Creation,” was published in the January/March 2009 issue of “The Cord, a Franciscan Spirituality Journal.”

Wrisley said a class called The Gospel According to St. Francis, taught by Dr. Timothy Johnson, professor of religion and chair of liberal studies at Flagler College, changed the way she views theology.

Without a football program, the likelihood of a Flagler alum standing on the field at a Super Bowl is always going to be pretty low — unless, of course, you’re Perry Knotts, ‘04. As a photographer, he’s already been there twice.

Freelancing for NFL.com, the St. Augustine photographer was on-hand when the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts in South Florida this past February. He also worked at the 2009 Super Bowl in Tampa. Flagler College Magazine talked to Knotts about his experience at football’s biggest game:

What was your role at the Super Bowl?
My main role was to edit pictures from the field photographers and transmit images to NFL.com headquarters in Los Angeles where they uploaded what I sent to the site. I also helped photograph before the game, pre-game, halftime and the post-game celebration.

How did you land the gig?
You’ll laugh how I found it, but it was in a classified section. It was listed on sportsshooter.com, a website devoted to sports photographers. [They were] asking for an assistant in Tampa. It had no mention of the Super Bowl, but I had a good idea that it was for that because of the date and time they needed you.

Did they use any of your shots?
There are a handful of my shots on the NFL.com website. My image of Drew Brees kissing the Vince Lombardi trophy was on the homepage of NFL.com right after the game.

What was the experience like, especially stepping onto that field?
It’s hard to explain what the experience is like. The atmosphere is electric and intense. You look around and see celebrities, NFL Hall of Famers, ESPN sportscasters. I feel blessed to be able to say I’ve been to the Super Bowl.

Will you do it again?
I believe so! We talked briefly about me helping at Super Bowl XLV in Dallas.

Aside from Super Bowls, what other big sporting events have you worked on?
I also photographed the Daytona 500 in 2009 and [Florida State head football coach] Bobby Bowden’s final game in Jacksonville.

It was the March 29 episode titled “Chuck Versus the American Hero,” and it popped up about three and a half minutes into the show when Chuck, now a member of the CIA, journeys to Washington, meets with a general for orders and is given a dossier with his next mission. The location: an Italian villa that is played by a picture of the Ponce.

The case: help one of the world’s leading digital mapping companies navigate the growing, but treacherous landscape of personal GPS systems.

That’s what Flagler’s chapter of the Society for Advancement of Management (SAM) did to win its ninth Management Case Competition title in April.

The team was given eight weeks – with no outside assistance – to review TomTom GPS, conduct a financial analysis and then come up with four strategic actions. The focus of this year’s competition was “Global Agility.”

Members of Flagler’s case team included Kaitlin Gardiner, Amy Robinson, Arlin Zajmi and Michael Marino, and their adviser is associate professor of business administration Paula Holanchock.

“What is most prestigious to me about our win is the different universities that actually competed — including international universities — and the panel of judges,” Holanchock said.

The team already holds the record for SAM national title wins; no other SAM team has won more than three national titles. Flagler’s team swept every award they qualified for in the undergraduate division.

Flagler also landed several other honors, including its ninth Campus Chapter Performance Program national title, which recognizes the best SAM chapter in the country.

“New Stories from the South” is an annual compilation of unique short stories, written by southern writers or about the South and published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

“It’s an enormous honor to be included in this anthology, alongside authors I’ve read and admired for so long,” Smith said.

“The majority [of the stories for the anthology] come from our most well-known authors, fiction writers who have already published multiple books,” said Assistant Professor of English Liz Robbins. “For Laura to be recognized at this point in her career means she has nowhere to go but up. We … are so fortunate to have her working with us.”

The students were from the Aviles School of Art, and the restoration marked the start of a relationship between Flagler and the Spanish school.

Maria Sedano, head of the painting restoration department in Aviles, oversaw the technical work of six students. She said they’ve all had about three years of education and many have recently completed degrees in art restoration.

The dining hall’s murals — which are more than a century old — had minor damage caused by paint peeling away from the plaster beneath. The dining hall is part of the former Ponce de Leon Hotel, which was completed in 1888 by Henry Flagler and is today a National Historic Landmark.

Don Martin, Flagler art and design professor, said the murals haven’t been touched up for almost a decade. The first major restoration was done in the 1980s.

“We thought this was something our art department does not offer, and it would establish a mutually beneficial experience,” Martin said. “The city and the college wanted
to establish cultural exchanges … Next summer we hope to have a relationship with their graphic design program.”