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ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ took its next steps this week in transforming the residential experience on campus as work crews started the demolition of three residence halls that make up the Story Center, where a new dining hall scheduled to open late next year will nearly double the size of an expanded Moseley Center.

John G. Currin Jr., president and chief executive officer of Alamance Regional Medical Center and ARMC Healthcare since 2005, was honored at a June 22 campus luncheon with the Frank S. Holt, Jr. Business Leadership Award, ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ’s highest honor for business leadership.

The ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ Board of Trustees has approved the establishment of a master of science program in physician assistant studies. The board's vote at its Oct. 22-23 fall meeting will launch ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ’s sixth graduate program.

A new undergraduate exchange program created this month between ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ 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.

Whitewater rafting, hiking, camping and rock climbing in West Virginia were on the docket this month for 64 incoming first-year students as part of Adventures in Leadership, a summer experience for rising freshmen sponsored by the Center for Leadership and Campus Recreation.

For the first time since their creations in 2008, incoming Watson and Odyssey Scholars took part this week in a specially designed orientation program that introduces the academically talented students with financial need, or no family history of college, to resources available to them as ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ students.

From researching new chemical methods of detecting explosives, to the mathematical modeling on synapses related to epileptic seizures, ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ students taking part in a summer research program shared their work July 22 in a series of morning presentations that showcased a variety of academic disciplines from across campus.

Issues in Political Economy, the undergraduate research journal published jointly by the economics departments at ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ and the University of Mary Washington, recently published its 20th anniversary volume.

ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ is one of four institutions in North Carolina awarded funding this summer from the North Carolina Preservation Consortium to help preserve library materials, manuscripts and other special collections – which, for the university, includes dozens of scrapbooks compiled by students and other campus organizations over the past century.

It’s no longer enough to teach reading, writing and arithmetic. Teachers must also emphasize “the four Cs” - critical thinking, creative problem solving, collaboration and communication, said Michelle Shearer, the 2011-12 National Teacher of the Year who addressed hundreds of North Carolina Teaching Fellows visiting ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ for a weekend conference for college seniors throughout the state studying to be educators.