Academics

Nebraska Wesleyan University senior Cristiana Barbatelli was excited about her role as Aunt Eller in the university’s recent musical Oklahoma! Having just returned from an apprenticeship at the prestigious Williamstown Theatre Festival, Barbatelli was eager share her new skills with an audience.

In her three years as a Nebraska Wesleyan University student Jessica Danson has studied abroad in Mexico, Germany and Estonia. Add to that her service trips to Nicaragua, Malawi, and Guatemala, and a conference in Canada, and you have to assume she’s headed for a career in international affairs.

Janae Riha knows she is living a dream by attending college. The Nebraska Wesleyan junior and her “dream team” are anxious to share their dreams with students at a nearby elementary school.

That’s just one project in the works for the residents of Nebraska Wesleyan’s new theme house — the Dream House.

Nebraska Wesleyan University senior Lesley Dudden already has an impressive resume.

Nebraska Wesleyan University senior Alexandra Hartmann says her heart lies in many places around the world.

She’s done service work in Malawi, Nicaragua and Guatemala with Nebraska Wesleyan’s Global Service Learning. She’s been to Montreal for the American Academy of Religion Annual Conference. She’s visited friends who are studying in various pockets of the world.

Nebraska Wesleyan University senior Erik Anderson hopes to become a licensed mental health practitioner someday.

Over the past year, the psychology department has increasingly been filled with students wearing lab coats and surgical masks. They're busy studying the behavioral traits of mice. They're conducting more animal research than any other time in recent history.

Psychology faculty and students say the increased interest can be traced to psychology professor Frank Ferraro.

“The greatest way to learn is to teach,” says Nebraska Wesleyan University senior Meera Bhardwaj.

As a philosophy major, Nebraska Wesleyan University graduate Nicole Spry knows its second nature for her to question and consume information.

In fact, she quickly points out that the word philosophy means “love of wisdom.”

“I believe that in order to be a productive global citizen I need to acquire as much wisdom as possible,” she said.

Political science professor Kelly Eaton is passionate about experiential learning. So it’s fitting that the new position she’ll begin this summer will focus on transforming Nebraska Wesleyan students.

Beginning July 1, Eaton will be the assistant provost for experiential learning.

Nebraska Wesleyan University Senior Alex Bednar grew up eating Czech food and celebrating his Czech heritage. Starting next fall, he’ll be immersed in the culture he’s so interested in thanks to a Fulbright Scholarship that will send him to the Czech Republic.

A Nebraska Wesleyan University forensic science professor has returned home after a two-week mission in Haiti where she helped identify Americans who perished in the January 12 earthquake.

Nebraska Wesleyan University professor Kathy Wolfe has been named the new Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Wolfe — a NWU alumna — is an associate professor of English and has taught at Nebraska Wesleyan since 2000.

Fifteen student members of Nebraska Wesleyan’s Global Service Learning organization traveled to Rosebud Indian Reservation during their recent winter break hoping to help its residents clean, sort, and organize a thrift store.

That task was accomplished. Perhaps their bigger accomplishment was the life lessons they brought back to Lincoln.