Stories

Studying abroad is usually a time to explore a new country, make international friends, and obtain credit hours somewhere other than one's home institution. While spending five months in Ghana, West Africa, I experienced all of these along with an additional life changing involvement. Being a social work major in Appalachian State University's College of Health Sciences, I knew I would want to spend some of my time volunteering with a needy non-profit. Little did I know, I would be a part of developing one.

Piloting an OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter just hundreds of feet off the ground with a two-person crew and a ground unit counting on your team for cover and intelligence is a profound responsibility. For 2005 graduate Natalie Graham Mallicoat, a staff officer at Fort Bragg, that was her life in Kandahar, Afghanistan from April 2009 to April 2010.

Appalachian offers 20 different Residential Learning Communities (RLCs) for freshman and continuing students each fall semester. The university was chosen as a 2010 Best College for Learning Communities according to U.S. News and World Report.

Appalachian State University's Department of Theatre and Dance began a new endeavor in 2010: summer community classes and a Front of the Curtain Festival, performed in August. Some participants of the acting workshops were cast in the festival's productions.

Dr. Joe Pollock, a professor of astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Physics and Astronomy at Appalachian State University, is part of an international research team comprised of scientists from Central and Western Europe, Latin American, Canada and the United States identifying and observing pairs of asteroids called binary asteroids.

Appalachian State University's Alumni Association honored three graduates during the spring alumni banquet April 24, 2010. They were Alice Williams Brown of Burlington, James K. Reaves of Kernersville and Richard G. Sparks of Boone.

After spending time writing a research paper and turning it in, what can you do with it next? Undergraduates from around the world can submit their papers to HISTORY MATTERS, an undergraduate journal of historical research that is based at Appalachian State University. It is funded and run by students and is published annually.