For the 10 youth offenders, the picture-perfect ranch and horse rides are a far cry from the barbed wire and tiny cells at the St. Johns Youth Academy.

But saddling up at the Haven Horse Ranch, just outside of St. Augustine, is no reward for good behavior. Rather it’s part of a new program that Flagler’s Students in Free Enterprise team began with the ranch and the moderate-risk facility for male offenders between the ages of 14 to 18 years old.

Called “Gateway to Haven,” the goal of the 12-week program is to teach personal responsibility through interaction with the horses.

“Working with horses will teach them how to have better behavior, relationships and accountability,” said SIFE President Emily Marcellus. “Horses tend to mirror their riders’ behavior, so if one of these kids acts angry or frustrated with the horse, the horse will act the same way. The students will have to learn to respect and be patient with the horse, which will help them in real life situations.”

Ric Lehman, who founded the ranch in 1990 to work with disadvantaged kids and help with physical rehabilitation, said this is the first time he has worked with inmates.

He said the program is intended to teach the participants important social traits by handling and caring for the horses.

“If you’re going to work with a horse, you have to be in charge,” he said. “It teaches them accountability, which isn’t being taught today.”

The idea was the brainchild of SIFE project leader Jovie Reeves, who has always been a horse enthusiast and felt the program at Horse Haven could work with the youth offenders.

“We wanted to reach out to the youth of St. Johns County to give them the opportunity to learn these important social skills,” she said. “We loved the mission of the ranch and wanted to help in any way we could.”

The Best Regional Colleges category includes schools whose focus is almost entirely on the undergraduate experience and who offer a broad range of programs in the liberal arts, as well as fields such as business, nursing and education. The 371 colleges in the category draw heavily from nearby states and are divided into four regions.

The Best Colleges guide compares the quality of schools based on “indicators of excellence” such as freshman retention, graduation rates and the strength of the faculty.

Flagler was also included in the Princeton Review’s annual college guide, “Best 376 Colleges – 2012 Edition.”

The Saints have had an amazing run since joining the Peach Belt Conference in 2009, winning three regular and post-season titles.

Flagler College senior setter Olivia Snipes and junior outside hitter Dianna Craine were selected to the 2011 American Volleyball Coaches Association Division II All-America Teams. Snipes earned third-team honors, the first Flagler player to be selected to one of the three teams in the history of the program.

Volleyball Coach Taylor Mott
It was also the final season for coach Taylor Mott, who completed her 13th year at the helm of the program with a record of 304-158. She is a three-time Peach Belt Conference Coach of the Year and a three-time Florida Sun Conference Coach of the Year. She and her husband, Brian, and their two children, have since relocated to Tennessee.

Men’s Soccer
The men’s soccer team reached the NCAA Division II Men’s Soccer Tournament quarterfinals this fall, but fell to Lynn University in penalty kicks after playing to a 1-1 double overtime draw.

The team finished ranked No. 5 in the final NSCAA/Continental Tire Div. II Top 25 poll and closed the year with a 17-3-3 record and an appearance in the elite eight. The No. 5 ranking is the program’s highest since a No. 3 ranking in 2002 when Flagler was a member of the NAIA. Flagler was the only Peach Belt Conference team ranked in the Top 25.

Johan Bergfeld was named to the Capital One Academic All-America NCAA Division II Men’s Soccer First Team, and soccer coach John Lynch was selected as the 2011 National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA)/Mondo Southeast Region Coach of the Year.

Bergfield, a native of Akers Styckebruk, Sweden, is a business major with a 3.96 GPA.

He has been named all-conference and academic all-conference three times.

Whether you’re a college student in St. Augustine or a tribesman in some remote village, there are some things we’re all affected by equally. Visiting professor Surinder Paracer spent the last semester teaching students about one of them: disease.

“Disease is one of those universal experiences that anyone who comes into this world is affected by,” explained Paracer, whose “Diseases and Mankind” course focuses on the diseases of ancient and modern man. “The course is built around the nature of history in regards to disease and how the world’s historical events have been shaped by either disease epidemics or the diseases of some of the leaders who were critical at a particular time.”

Paracer, who received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Davis and has participated in advanced studies in biology and the history of science at the University of Massachusetts, Harvard University and Yale University, has taught the course for nearly 30 years at Worcester State University, his home college.

Students who took the course spent the semester studying the significance of such world-famous epidemics as small pox in South America, which decimated the indigenous population, the Irish potato famine, and the outbreak of yellow fever in Philadelphia in 1793. The class also examines Greek influence on Western medicine along with Indian, Chinese and other cultural healing practices.

But the course went beyond pure history, studying how disease has affected culture through social structure, science, art and philosophy.

Flagler College has begun construction on a new 12,000-square-foot, $3.8–million building that will serve as the college’s Admissions and Financial Aid center — the first point of contact for prospective students.

Flagler College President William T. Abare Jr., Ed.D., joined faculty and the Board of Trustees on Oct. 26 to break ground on Hanke Hall, which will be located on Cordova Street across from Kenan Hall.

“We recognize that students have a wide array of colleges from which they may choose, and we believe that it is important for us to make a good first impression on prospective students and their families,” Abare said, adding many small colleges like Flagler have begun recognizing the importance of welcome centers in their student recruitment programs.

“Dr. Abare speaks very frequently about the importance of enrollment to a college funded almost solely by tuition revenue,” said Marc Williar, vice president of enrollment management. “The addition of Hanke Hall will enable us to not only continue to meet and exceed enrollment goals, but to improve our operation and strive to achieve even more ambitious goals and objectives.”

Williar believes the new facility will also help Flagler better compete for prospective students.

The facility is being named after Board of Trustees member Col. G. F. Robert Hanke, USMC (Ret.)

“Col. Hanke expressed an interest in this project soon after he joined the board,” Abare said. “He recognized the importance of the building to our student recruitment program, and decided to make a major gift to help pay for the construction of the facility.”

As for Wiley Hall, the college’s current admissions center, Flagler’s director of Business Services and Campus Planner Larry Weeks says upon the completion of Hanke Hall, plans are to move the Registrar’s office to the first floor of Wiley Hall and renovate the second floor for faculty offices.

Hanke Hall is expected to be finished in July.

The Board of Trustees endorsed the campaign, and the Advancement Committee of the Board is working closely with the administration in planning, organizing and implementing the campaign. A campaign goal will be determined upon the completion of the leadership phase. 

More than $8.4 million in cash and pledges has been raised toward the current and projected needs of the college.

Students returning to campus in the fall of 2011 got a chance to give the world a little piece of their mind thanks to some chalk and black plywood “thought bubbles.”

Dreamed up by Holly Hill, ‘02, assistant director of College Relations, the idea was part of the college’s Day of Welcome program, where new and returning students met faculty and staff on the West Lawn and got better acquainted with the campus.

Students were asked, “How was your first week?” and invited to shout it out on the boards. Here’s a sampling of what they said.

Photo Gallery: Day of Welcome

One of the awards recognized the school’s 2011 Communication Week in a category for student public relations campaigns. Communication Week brings in speakers from the field of communication to classes and special talks.

The minor includes five courses — Calculus I, Calculus II, Statistics, Linear Algebra and Discrete Mathematics.

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Robbins said she was inspired to title her manuscript, “Play Button,” because technology and visualization are so prevalent in today’s society.

“I liked the idea of the title having something to do with technology because that’s where everything is going these days visually,” she said. “I was hoping for the idea that the reader would, figuratively speaking, push the play button by opening the book.”

Robbins says her writing has matured since her first book of poetry, “Hope, As the World is a
Scorpion Fish,” was published by The Blackwater Press in 2008.