September 18, 2026: Going out

Sometimes you just have to get out! Studying, reading, and watching is ok some of the time. But we are meant for movement. And there is a lot to see, sometimes just in your own backyard, so to speak.

I know that many of us have been getting out this week, to different parts of campus and to nearby destinations. Here are some of the ways we have gotten out this week:

• Week of Prayer. We have been blessed by presentations this week from Anthony Wagener-Smith, sharing from his heart on how we are called by God. Perhaps you got to some of these – hopefully you have gained a blessing in addition to the worship credit.
• Our Systems Physiology class got out of the lab this week and did lab at the Wellness Center! It looks like they had fun learning about sports and muscle physiology. Maybe they got a workout in the process!
• General Ecology took a trip to a local bog. Not a place we typically spend much time in, but life in a bog requires special adaptations to make it.  I saw some carnivorous plants in those pictures!
• Not too far from Andrews is the University of Notre Dame – a major research university that often brings presenters of note to town. Just yesterday some of us from Cosmos, an Honors course that touches on the big questions of science and faith, traveled to Notre Dame to hear another perspective: a presentation by engineer and Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist Damien Marie Savino, who spoke on how science and theology can work together to understand the creation and enrich our humanity.
• Earlier in the week, I enjoyed another trip to Notre Dame to hear Nobel Laureate (Chemistry 2018) Francis Arnold, whose lab has managed to engineer enzymes new to biology. It was a packed house for that one! This one was special to me because one of our recent biology graduates is now working in the lab of Dr. Arnold at CalTech towards a PhD degree. Next week I hope to share more about the success of our alumni over recent years.
• Today and tomorrow are SciFest. We have had a great group of academy students working through activities in all the sciences and learning about cells – whatever might be the definition of that word in different disciplines. In biology, we considered plant cells and we performed a stomatal peel. No, that’s not the surface of a fruit, it’s a method to look at stomata – and it works so beautifully! You should try it sometime!

Well, that was a full week!  But now just a heads up about the week to come.

One week from today, Friday, September 25, is the beginning of our annual Alumni Homecoming Weekend. In the afternoon at 2:30 in the Biology Amphitheater, biology alumnus Dr. Paul Kovalsky, DDS, will be sharing “Return of the Tooth Sleuth: Life as a Forensic Dentist.”

Please put that on your schedule, you don’t want to miss it!