For centuries, humans have used stories to connect with each other, and often, these stories have the power to spark emotions, create understanding, educate people, and change perspectives. So in summer 2014, when Professor Liz Wuerffel and two digital media graduate students, Saddam Al-Zubaidi and Sarhang Sherwany, traveled to Kurdish Region, Iraq, to film a […]
“I knew that with our engineering students, we could take the idea of an aerial photography device to a new level,” said Wuerffel, who immediately contacted Valpo’s College of Engineering. Jeff Will, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, loved the idea, and asked Wuerffel to pitch her idea to his senior design class – […]
Allison Meyer found a muddy shoe. Another student found a garden trowel. Valparaiso University’s biology club members made several unlikely discoveries to expand on classroom knowledge while restoring the region’s rivers this spring. The club was working at the Elkhart Conservation Club property on Cobus Creek, five miles west of Elkhart, Ind., when Meyer found […]
Rachel Rockey has a clear vision of what she wants to do with her life: to teach mathematics to high school students and to be a motivational leader for them. “I want to become the teacher that is a light to her students and inspires them to learn — not only teaching mathematics, but inspiring […]
In the Midwest, many people say that if someone doesn’t like the weather, stick around a minute, it will change. But meteorology students at Valparaiso University are not the type to simply wait around. Quarter-century in the making In 1991, Valpo developed a meteorology major, ushering in the newly dubbed Department of Geography and Meteorology. […]
Ask Liz Wuerffel and Allison Schuette to summarize the Welcome Project in a brief statement, and they’ll do it in one sentence: How do we live with difference? Of course, the multimedia venture is much more than that. But the statement gets to the heart and soul of the Welcome Project, which is a collection […]
The late 90s represented the pinnacle of basketball fever at Valparaiso University. The Drew family cemented their legacy by coupling Valpo Athletics’ hallmark moment — “The Shot” — with three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances. Women’s basketball enjoyed a 72-42 record from fall 1996 through spring 2000. The campus was engulfed in school spirit and enthusiasm […]
Valparaiso University is always looking for new ways to help students discover their passions and follow their dreams in a fast-evolving world, and few fields are evolving faster than the world of interactive entertainment media. In many ways, it’s a race forward with new hardware and better graphics dominating much of the video gaming industry. […]
At Valparaiso University, Ruyue Yuan has found a connection between math and music that might surprise most people. “They’re both beautiful,” Yuan said. Yuan has been playing the violin since she was 6 years old. She loves music. In fact, she enjoys studying all of the humanities, but she also has a natural gift for […]
Valparaiso University has been selected to receive a 3-year, $750,000 grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to improve literacy instruction in Indiana. Lilly Endowment made the grant through its initiative, Advancing Science of Reading in Indiana (ASRI). The aim of the initiative is to enhance the use of evidence-based tools and methods to improve reading instruction […]