TROY News Center

DOTHAN—Whether its gluing marshmallow teeth into a model mouth or making straw paper rockets, Troy University education majors are working hands on this summer helping local children learn more about science, math and technology.

The Summer Spectacular learning enrichment program held each year by the College of Education at the Dothan Campus gives junior and senior education majors classroom management experience while providing a fun educational environment for children.

Open to children ages 4 to 12, the four-week camp is under way this month at Kelly Springs Elementary School in Dothan, with about 80 children taking part. The camp’s last day is June 27.

Julie Sanders, a senior early childhood education major from Goshen, has been working in the “Human Body Classroom,” leading children through crafts and activities designed to teach about human anatomy and physiology.

“We put together our own lesson plans each day, which has been great experience,” Sanders said.

Daryl Williams, a senior elementary education major from Marianna, Fla., said Summer Spectacular keeps the student teachers on their toes as students of varying ages and ability levels are grouped together into class each day.

“You don’t really know what to expect until you get into the classroom each day,” Williams said. “It’s always a challenge, but we are learning a lot.”

The theme for this summer’s program is “Kids as NASA Scientists,” and each classroom is focusing on a different aspect of math, science or technology, from robotics to environmental science.

Dr. Cynthia Hicks, assistant professor of reading education and one of the coordinators for Summer Spectacular, said the curriculum is project based and designed to be interactive and hands-on.

“The lessons are designed to introduce a topic and encourage exploration and investigation,” Dr. Hicks said.

The Dothan Campus has been holding Summer Spectacular for more than 15 years as a way for education majors taking classes during the summer to get classroom hours even while schools are out. This year, 38 TROY student teachers are participating.

The program’s closing ceremony will be on Thursday, June 27, at 10 a.m. inside the Kelly Springs cafeteria.

Stephanie Burgans, administrative secretary to the Senior Vice Chancellor for Finance and Business Affairs, has won the University’s Vergil Parks McKinley Award.

Burgans, who has been a member of the University’s staff since 2007, received the award on June 12 during a ceremony at the Hawkins-Adams-Long Hall of Honor on the Troy Campus. Dr. Jack Hawkins, Jr., Chancellor, presented the award to Burgans, who was nominated by Lauri Dorrill, associate controller.

The McKinley Award is the highest honor that Troy University gives to a non-faculty staff member. It is presented quarterly to an employee who has demonstrated outstanding attitude, innovation and work ethic. The award was established by former Texaco CEO John McKinley in honor of his father, Vergil Parks McKinley, who was a Troy University professor during the early 20th century and was key to the development of the University’s athletic program. Winners of this award receive an engraved clock and a $1,000 stipend.

Since May 2011, Burgans has been assisting in TROY’s Purchasing and Asset Management and Foundation Accounting departments.

“She willingly stepped into Purchasing and Assets during a time of uncertainty in our reorganization of the department,” Dorrill said. “Saying that she took the bull by the horns would be an understatement.  Not only did she willingly do what was asked of her but she often boldly made suggestions of how to correct or enhance an area. Within weeks, she had organized stacks of documents and tackled other projects that needed to be taken care of.”

Dorrill said the qualities that make Burgans a valued employee seem to come naturally.

“She is always one of the first to arrive in the office, helpful and pleasant to others on both the phone and in person, has a strong work ethic and is dedicated not only to her job but to her family, friends and her education as well,” Dorrill said, noting that Burgans is in her senior year in pursuit of a degree in accounting. “Stephanie has been a key factor in helping make the sometimes seemingly impossible and daunting task of reorganizing a department in times of staff vacancies a possibility.”

Burgans, who was joined at the ceremony by her husband, Jason, said she was honored to receive the award.

“Like a lot of people who receive this award, I am shocked and unprepared,” the Henderson resident said. “This wouldn’t be possible without the great employees I work with. I’m just thankful to be a part of the TROY family.”

Stephanie Burgans, administrative secretary to Dr. Jim Bookout, Senior Vice Chancellor for Finance and Business Affairs, receives the University’s Vergil Parks McKinley Award on June 12 from Chancellor Jack Hawkins, Jr. and Lauri Dorrill (left), Associate Controller. Since 2011, Burgans has assisted Dorrill in the University’s Purchasing and Asset Management and Foundation Accounting departments.

The Troy University Small Business Development Center will offer a session of the Alabama Department of Revenue’s Tax Workshop for new business owners in the Troy area on June 20.

The free workshop, which will begin at 5:30 p.m., will be held at the Pike County Economic Development Corporation, located at 100 Industrial Boulevard in Troy.

Presented by the Office of Taxpayer Advocacy, the workshops will present information on a variety of state tax and business topics, including employer withholding taxes, state and local sales taxes, property taxes, business licensing requirements and Alabama’s child labor law. In addition, an overview of Alabama’s business tax electronic filing programs will be presented.

The Office of Taxpayer Advocacy has been established to provide an avenue of relief, to identify systemic problems, and to offer suggestions for improvement in procedures, according to the organization’s website. It is a way to reinforce the Alabama Department of Revenue’s commitment to equitable and fair treatment.

For more information concerning the workshop, visit the department’s website at www.revenue.alabama.gov or call 334-242-2677.

MONTGOMERY— The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society will hold its 12^th International Fitzgerald Society Conference at Troy University’s Montgomery Campus Nov. 6-10.

The Society selected TROY as the site for its biennial event because Montgomery is the birthplace of Zelda Sayre (1900-1948) and the city in which she met F. Scott Fitzgerald, then a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army, in 1918.

“Montgomery is a natural site for the conference,” said Dr. Sara A. Kosiba, assistant professor of English on the Montgomery Campus and the conference program director. “It’s one of the top two or three sites in (F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's) biography, right up there with New York, Paris, and Hollywood. The Fitzgeralds are a major tourism draw in Montgomery, and with TROY’s Montgomery Campus located downtown, we’re right in the heart of the history.”

More than 70 papers and roundtables will be presented over the course of the conference, Kosiba said, and scholars from nearly a dozen countries are expected to attend.

In addition to discussions of both Fitzgeralds’ works and lives, the event will feature a bus tour of significant sites, including Oakwood Cemetery, the partial setting for the 1920 short story “The Ice Palace”; the W.A. Gayle Planetarium in historic Oak Park, which Troy University operates; and a “Belles and Jelly Beans” costume ball inspired by another popular story set in a fictionalized Montgomery, “The Jelly-Bean.” An opening reception will be held Wednesday, Nov. 6, at the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery, and special teaching panels for high-school educators will be offered at a reduced rate on Friday, Nov. 8.

The timing of the conference coincides with renewed public interest in F. Scott Fitzgerald and “The Great Gatsby.”

“It’s an amazing time in Fitzgerald Studies with the popularity of Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation of 'The Great Gatsby',” said Dr. Kirk Curnutt, the Society vice-president and site director of the conference. “There is a lot of fresh and enthusiastic interest in Scott and Zelda right now. We hope to offer folks who’ve rediscovered 'Gatsby' through the movie an opportunity to learn more and have a taste of Roaring 20s’ fun. The great thing about the Society is that at least 50 percent of the membership is composed of non-academics. We’re a society for anybody and everybody who loves the Fitzgeralds.”

Curnutt is the chair of TROY’s English department at the Montgomery Campus.

Keynotes at the conference will include biographer Scott Donaldson, author of the 1983 Fitzgerald biography “Fool for Love,” which was recently reissued by the University of Minnesota Press; “Wall Street Journal” columnist and jazz critic Will Friedwald, who will discuss his theatrical revue “Tales of the Jazz Age: An F. Scott Fitzgerald Songbook,” which recently held its world debut at the Café Carlyle in New York; and historian Philip Greene, author of “To Have and Have Another: A Hemingway Cocktail Companion,” who will discuss Fitzgerald’s connoisseurship.

Additionally, novelist Lee Smith, author of “Fair and Tender Ladies,” will read from her latest novel, “Guests on Earth,” at the conference on Friday, Nov. 8. “Guests on Earth” is set in Asheville, North Carolina, at the same hospital where Zelda died in a fire in 1948 and even includes a cameo by Zelda. The reading is free and open to the public.

The cost for the conference is $140, which includes access to all sessions and keynotes, the bus tour, and the ball. Registration information and the preliminary program are available at www.fscottfitzgeraldsociety.org.

The registration due date is Aug. 1.  For more information, contact Curnutt at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or 334-241-9701.

DOTHAN—Troy University’s Dothan Campus library was recently awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association that will fund a series of book discussions based around the “Muslim Journeys” collection.

The “Let’s Talk About It: Muslim Journeys” grant program is a scholar-led reading and discussion project sponsored by the NEH and ALA. The "Muslim Journeys Bookshelf" is a collection of books, DVDs, and other programming resources selected to help public audiences become more familiar with the people, places, history, faith and cultures of Muslims around the world and within the U.S.

The Dothan Campus library will be hosting a series of five book discussions based around the “Muslim Journeys” collection starting in January 2014.

TROY is one of only 125 libraries and state humanities councils in the nation selected to receive a “Let’s Talk About It: Muslim Journeys” grant, and the only such institution in Alabama.

“Through this series of book talks, we hope that members of the community will come to learn more about not only other religions and cultures, but more about their own religions and cultures as well,” said Christopher Shaffer, director of the Dothan Campus Library.

TROY previously was awarded a “Let’s Talk About It” grant that supported a 2012 series of discussions on the Civil War.

For more information on the upcoming series, contact Shaffer at (334) 983-6556, ext. 1320, or  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .