Flagler opened in 1968, and just 170 female students were enrolled during that first year. When Gibbs first started working at Flagler in 1969, she and some other professors lived on campus.

“When I reflect back and view those first classes, merely a handful of students, and how successful all of them have become, I am still in awe,” said Gibbs, who has stayed in touch with most of her students throughout her career. “I would hear knocks on my door, and when opening would find that one of the girls wanted to borrow a book or needed some help … we became a very close-knit family.”

Before moving to St. Augustine, Gibbs earned her MFA in Modern Drama from the University of Eastern Illinois. At Flagler, her passion for theatre led her to develop a Theatre Arts program with Tom Rahner. They started producing a play each semester.

“I remember having our first plays in the dining room or the Rotunda,” she said. “We had great support from the community, too.”

Gibbs has dedicated her life to expanding and improving Flagler’s theatre department. The workload has increased with time, and she juggles with multiple activities: She is not only professor and chair, but a friend and even a second mother to many of her students.

“I don’t know another person who could run this department the way she does,” said senior Kelley Smith, 21. “I’m marveled at how she does it.”

Gibbs often receives letters, cards, e-mails and phone calls from her previous students, saying hello or telling her about a new baby or job. She continues to collect memories and create strong bonds with as many students as she can.

“The college has grown exponentially,” Gibbs said. “It’s a true gem in a very congested world … I feel privileged to work here. People ask me when I plan to retire, and I say, ‘Retire? What about all the young people I would never meet?’ ”

CNN Senior Correspondent Candy Crowley was one of several prominent media speakers at Communication Week this past March. The annual event brings to Flagler a variety of professionals working in journalism, public relations and new media. Crowley spoke on the frenzied pace of TV
reporting and the presidential race.

“On the Democrat side, we never get a chance to see anyone up close. The public has not been as well-served because it doesn’t know who these people are,” she told The St. Augustine Record. “Something in me says, ‘Do we know enough?’ It’s hard to find a moment when we think ‘This is the person, not the candidate.’ We don’t have a chance to flesh them out.”

Other speakers included Cheryl Diaz-Meyer, a senior staff photographer for The Dallas Morning News, was a co-recipient of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography for her work on the invasion and aftermath of the war in Iraq.

Communication Week is organized by Flagler’s Communication Department and is hosted by the Flagler
chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America.

It’s difficult to summarize what Matthew Erley did during the last six months of 2007. He sang in seven different countries. He milked cows in the Swiss Alps. He helped build houses in the Phillipines, where he also ate chicken feet and encountered the worst poverty of his life.

Erley, a Flagler College business student, was traveling with Up With People, a public-service and performance organization that aims to uplift the underprivileged in communities around the globe. He joined an international cast of students from more than 20 countries who applied and paid to participate in the program, which entails six months of traveling, volunteering, learning, sightseeing and, in Erley’s case, singing.

“The show side of it is a really unique aspect of the program,” Erley said, estimating that he probably completed about 30 performances and 40 community service days during his trip. “The songs portray messages of peace and diversity … People’s stigma with Up With People is it’s sort of hokey, ‘Let’s change the world!’ But it’s about change, people one-on-one helping each other.”

Up With People had a musical focus when it launched in 1965; the group experienced fame for a time, performing in Super Bowl halftime shows and attracting talent like actress Glenn Close. Erley said his parents met while performing with Up With People, and his father is now vice president of marketing for the non-profit. Erley decided to try it because he’s “always enjoyed performing” and wanted a chance to travel “while giving back and staying with host families.”

He documented his experiences in a blog: matthewerley.blogspot.com. Finding time to update it was tough, he said, but he wanted a way to share his experience.

“Mentally, it wears you out – and physically,” Erley said. “But you’re having such a good time because you’re in a different place each week. You’re always doing something or learning something … I feel like I grew up so much. My views on all kinds of things are different.”

Erley said the volunteers came from a variety of backgrounds, and they frequently challenged each other’s opinions on issues like race and sexual orientation. Language barriers meant less conversation with locals, but some of Erley’s most vivid memories come from his Italian host family – none of whom spoke English.

“We’d sit at dinner for an hour and have no idea what we were talking about,” he said. “But I was trying to so hard to figure it out … you feel so much more of a connection.”

The lack of formal communication created more funny incidents than frustrating ones, Erley said – like the time he and another cast member were served some very salty fruit salad. They barely swallowed it down, trying to be polite – then the family tried the dish.

“They immediately spit it out and started yelling at each other,” Erley said, laughing. “Someone had put salt instead of sugar on accident … but we didn’t know any better. It was hilarious.”

Erley said many of the classes Up With People offered dealt with how to improve communities on a local, rather than international, level. It’s an approach he’s trying to incorporate into his everyday life now that he’s returned from the trip. He’s volunteering as a Big Brother and considering a career in non-profit work.

“The world is just really small to me now,” he said. “You don’t have to create some amazing thing to create change … One of our songs lyrics went, ‘One-on-one you can change the world,’ and I really believe in that.”

The decision to add softball has been on the agenda since Flagler made the move to NCAA Div. II. Most teams in the region have softball teams in place, and Flagler needed to make the
addition to its roster of sports.

To get the program rolling, Flagler named Kristen Atkinson head coach. Atkinson, a 2004 graduate of the University of North Florida, where she lettered in softball all four years, was the assistant coach at Nova Southeastern University last season.

“It’s not an opportunity that happens,” Atkinson said of heading the beginning of a collegiate softball program. “The way that softball is in this country right now, it’s a very popular thing. Not many people have that opportunity. Granted we did have slow-pitch softball, but that was 20 years ago.”

Though the slow-pitch program was successful, its legacy has faded and it will be 20 years in Flagler’s past when the first pitch of the fast-pitch era flies in spring 2009. So Atkinson is tasked with building the program completely from scratch.

And it’s no easy task.

“My first priority was to start recruiting,” she said. “My focus was going to be to get kids familiar with Flagler College. When it comes to the softball world and girls that want to play college softball, when they do their research, Flagler is not one of the schools that they research because we didn’t have it.”

Atkinson has tapped into a network of high school and college coaches in Florida that she established while at Nova Southeastern and Indian River Community College, to get the word out about Flagler’s new program.

“It was really mainly about networking and getting the recruits in,” she said. “I haven’t even ordered equipment yet. I haven’t ordered uniforms. We’re working on the field.”

Flagler is converting a baseball practice field into its softball field, a task that will be completed this summer.

Atkinson already has eight players committed to her first team and is using a unique pitch to get recruits excited about Flagler softball.

“Being a first-year program, we’re starting a tradition,” she said. “You’ve got to want to start this program. You can’t be afraid of not having any history here. It’s a new legacy. You’ve got to be able to come in and start this on the right foot and be very competitive from the first year because that’s the way I am.”

For more on Flagler’s softball program, visit http://athletics.flagler.edu.

The team set a new record for SAM national title wins — no other SAM teams have won more than three of the awards. Flagler’s SAM team also landed several other honors, including its seventh Campus Chapter Performance Program national title, which recognizes the best SAM chapter in the country.

“As their adviser, I was awed by their preparation and delivery,” said Preysz, who was a professor of business administration. “We’re really smashing our old records. [We] swept every award we qualified for within our categories — the second time in a row we have achieved this milestone.”

Members of Flagler’s SAM Management Case team included Samuel Osborne, Kaitlin Gardiner, Vivian Helwig and Mihir Garud.

Flagler’s SAM team competed against undergraduate student chapters from 60 colleges and universities at the annual International Business Conference.

This year’s case company was Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, which has experienced a loss in profits in recent years. The team’s suggestions included reforming accounting practices, increasing marketing efforts and expanding globally to the Middle East and Asia.

“The judges said what was unique about the solutions we came up with was how they all tied together and had a sense of synergy,” said Helwig, who also won the National Outstanding SAM Student award.

Woolfolk was associate provost and professor of sociology at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta prior to joining Flagler. He replaces Paula Miller, who resigned in July after 12 years of service that she called “very rewarding, full of wonderful opportunities, unique challenges and positive results.”

Woolfolk brings a rich academic background to his new position. In addition to a 35-year teaching career, he has led a variety of programs to improve faculty development, curriculum and campus culture.

“Flagler has been exceptionally well-managed financially, developed many strong programs, been very successful in recruiting students and generally exhibited what I would call an entrepreneurial spirit,” Woolfolk said. “When I visited the campus, I detected a sense of commitment and enthusiasm among the faculty, staff and students. I intend to work very closely with all three groups to see if we can find ways to make a strong academic program even stronger.”

Woolfolk holds doctorate and master’s degrees in sociology from University of Pennsylvania and another master’s degree in political science from the University of Oregon. He also has a bachelor’s degree in economics from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance and Commerce.

Kelly, who was appointed assistant dean this summer, also served as interim dean of Academic Affairs during the Fall semester. The former chair of the Business Administration department has worked at Flagler for 18 years and been named “Professor of the Year” twice.

The English major spent years dreaming about traveling to China after seeing a television special on Chinese adoptions when she was in elementary school. By middle school, she was telling anyone who would listen that she hoped to live in China one day.

Finally, with the last summer of her undergraduate studies looming, Griner decided it was time to “test the waters” and see if living in the communist country was really for her.

“The whole country intrigues me,” she said. “I had to go there for myself and walk the dirt roads and shake hands with farmers to really understand what China is all about.”

Griner spent seven weeks there training in Beijing, taking classes at a teachers’ college in north central China and living with a rural Chinese family, which turned out to be her favorite part of the trip.

She took a four-hour bus ride to a remote village that had a reputation for being hostile toward outsiders. But Griner said the people in that small town were some of the most warm and caring she met during her trip.

“They loved me not for my flowery words or grand ideas, because they couldn’t understand me,” she said. “They loved me just for existing, just for being me.”

Despite having to help kill a chicken for dinner, sticking out like a sore thumb with her bright red hair and white skin, sharing a concrete slab bed with an entire family and using a “town bathroom” – which meant a concrete block wall surround and two bricks to stand on to keep the user’s feet clean – Griner says the rural experience was rewarding.

“I now know there is really nothing I cannot do,” she said. “There are only boundaries that I set for myself. If I have to eat scorpion, or chicken feet, or shower with 40 other people, I can.”

Most Chinese live on farms and are very poor, Griner said, in stark contrast to the images of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong portrayed by magazines. But she believes the country has a lot to offer.

“China is a place of extraordinary contradictions, and this generation of Chinese college students has an incredible future,” Griner said. “My impression of China is one of incredible natural beauty, a rich and spiritual history and a people whose kindness has invigorated my soul.”

Griner finds the “hustle and sensory overload” of America exhausting after spending her days cultivating sunflowers and getting to know people with more basic needs. She still appreciates the United States and the freedoms it offers, but she plans to make the move to China this summer after she receives her degree.

“I strive to become more Chinese each day – which means lessening my need for identity, control and independence,” she said.

Even so, Griner is unsure of her ultimate plans.

“I don’t know who I will be in 20 years,” she said. “But I know that my experience in China has changed my life forever.”

The poster came out of a class for Art Professor Don Martin, who for the past two years has assigned his illustration students to design a poster for a non-profit organization that interests them. Luce’s poster is one of three projects being published.

The Blood:Water Mission is a non-profit based in Tennessee whose mission is to reduce the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic by building clean water wells and supporting medical facilities in Africa. A donation of just $1 provides a year’s supply of water for one person there.

After submitting his work to the organization, Luce received an e-mail saying it would be published on pamphlets for board members and promotional posters to be shown at events such as Bonnaroo.

Luce’s use of rich, earthy colors and rustic designs in his poster complement Blood:Water Mission’s visual theme.

“I was inspired by the organization itself, the work they do and the look they have in a lot of their advertising, also just artists like Marc Rothco,” Luce said. “I hope that visually it represents them and that it will inspire people to want to donate to their cause.”

For more information on Blood:Water Mission and getting involved, visit their Web site at:
http://www.bloodwatermission.com, or http://www.myspace.com/bloodwatermission

Novak is the author of The New York Times bestselling book, “The Prince of Darkness: 50 years Reporting in Washington,” a memoir of his years in journalism. He’s just as well- known for his newspaper column, his appearances on Fox News and CNN and his involvement in the Valerie Plame-CIA leak scandal.

Novak spoke at the Flagler College Forum on Government and Public Policy this past November, and he took questions from several classes during his visit.

At the Forum, Novak read from his book, talked about the upcoming presidential election and spoke about the difficulties of being in the spotlight after his newspaper column about Plame created a media stir and spawned a special investigation.