TROY News Center

MONTGOMERY—Troy University will take part in the worldwide celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” on Tuesday, April 16, by hosting readings of the letter in Montgomery and Dothan.

Organized by the Birmingham Public Library, the worldwide celebration marks the 50^th anniversary of the day King began writing his famous open letter. Public readings of the letter are scheduled around the world at schools, museums, churches and other locations.

Troy University will join the celebration with readings inside the Rosa Parks Museum auditorium on the Montgomery Campus and on the steps of the Library/Technology Building at the Dothan Campus. Both events start at noon and are open to the public.

Written from a Birmingham jail cell after King’s arrest during a non-violent protest, the letter was a response to a letter by eight concerned white pastors who felt it was not an appropriate time for King to lead demonstrations.

For more information on the TROY readings, contact Georgette Norman at the Rosa Parks Museum at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or Dr. Marty Olliff at the Dothan Campus at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

For more on the worldwide celebration, visit http://www.bplonline.org/programs/1963/Letter.aspx.

TROY -- Clifford Levy, deputy editor of the Metro Section of the New York Times and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for his investigative reporting, will speak to Troy University students at 10 a.m. Wednesday in the Trojan Center Theatre on the Troy Campus.

Levy’s presentation is a part of the TROY’s partnership with The New York Times, which supports the University’s Quality Enhancement Plan to create a culture of engaged readers.

Levy also oversees investigative projects and specializes in social media. He has also served the Times as their Moscow Bureau Chief and secured one of his Pulitzer Prizes for a series of articles about human rights and freedom of speech in Russia.

Levy joined The Times in 1990 as a news assistant, was promoted to reporter in 1992 and has served various positions with the paper since that time. Before joining The Times, Levy was a reporter for the New York bureau of United Press International.

In addition to his Pulitzers, Levy is a three-time winner of the George Polk Award, presented annually by Long Island University to honor special achievement in journalism. He also has been honored with the 2008 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Foreign Correspondence, the International Print Winner for the RFK Journalism Awards in 2009 and a 2009 Eppy Award from Editor & Publisher.

Born in New Rochelle, N.Y., on June 15, 1967, Mr. Levy graduated from Princeton University in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in public policy and international affairs.

Mr. Levy is married with three children and lives in Brooklyn.

TROY – Troy University has become the first university in America to be designated a “Purple Heart University.”

The move comes in an effort to honor veterans who have been given the award that was created by Gen. George Washington. The Military Order of the Purple Heart is granted to those service members who have been killed or wounded in battle.

“Our status as the first Purple Heart University in America is a natural extension of TROY’s long history of service to the men and women in uniform,” said Chancellor Dr. Jack Hawkins Jr. “We are proud of the thousands of our students and graduates who are serving in harm’s way and it’s with pride that we serve them and support them.”

One of the newest support efforts the University has undertaken is the creation of the Troy for Troops Center, a one-stop center for military students to access University services and problem resolution. In addition to the TROY for Troops Scholarship, given to dependents of TROY alumni killed in action, the University has established the TROY for Troops Military Tuition Discount Scholarship for each branch that will discount all tuition above that which is allowable by tuition assistance.

Currently, the University enrolls about 7,000 active-duty military personnel, National Guard members, Reservists or veterans, and 62 TROY alumni serve as general or flag-rank officers or as members of the Senior Executive Service of all four branches of the U.S. military. Over the past 30 years, 123 TROY alumni have retired as general or flag-rank officers from all branches.

The University’s tradition of military service has its roots in 1950, when it began offering extension courses at Fort Rucker. Later, these operations were expanded to Maxwell Air Force Base and these centers became the forerunner to what is known today as Global Campus, the division of the University that operates teaching sites outside the state of Alabama and internationally.

Headquartered in Troy, Ala., the University operates campuses in Montgomery, Dothan and Phenix City in Alabama, and sites in seven states and six nations.

Several members of the University’s senior leadership team are themselves veterans, including Chancellor Hawkins, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam. He has also served as chair of the Board of Visitors for Air University, housed at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery.

While no official lists of Purple Heart recipients exist, it is estimated that about 1.7 million Americans from all wars and conflicts hold the award. In Alabama, there are 718 members of the Military Order of the Purple Heart of Alabama, although that membership does not include all Purple Heart recipients, which number more than 7,600 since 1932.

University officials formally signed a resolution designating the University in March.

Troy University Chancellor Dr. Jack Hawkins, Jr., center, receives a commemorative plaque designating the University as the nation’s first Purple Heart University from Col. Edgar L. Smith, III (ret.), left, and Commander K.T. Cole, of the Military Order of the Purple Heart J.R. Thomas Memorial Chapter #2205. (TROY photo)

Troy University MathFest 2013, a one-day undergraduate mathematics conference, will take place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, April 6 in Hawkins Hall on the Troy Campus.

Made possible by Troy University funding and a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant through the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), TROY MathFest, created in 2004, allows students from around the region to take part in presentations and discussions covering all areas of mathematics. The event is an initiative of the University’s Department of Mathematics, chaired by Diane Porter, in the College of Arts and Sciences.

“The purpose of the conference is to have a common mathematics forum accessible to all undergraduate students in the Southeast and beyond,” said Dr. Vijaya Gompa, professor of mathematics on the University’s Dothan Campus who is serving in her second year as the event’s director.

Dr. Ken Roblee, professor of mathematics on the Troy Campus, former MathFest director and local coordinator for this year’s event, said the opportunity for students to present their research at the forum provides valuable experience.

“The importance of TROY MathFest is that it fills the need for giving regional undergraduate students in mathematics the opportunity to present their research projects in a formal, NSF-MAA (National Science Foundation and Mathematical Association of America) supported conference, as well as the opportunity to meet and learn from undergraduate students and faculty members in mathematics from other universities and colleges,” Dr. Roblee said.

Participants will also have the opportunity to hear Dean G. Hoffman, professor of discrete mathematics at Auburn University, present on the topic “A Packing Problem from the Arithmetic Mean – Geometric Mean Inequality.”

Hoffman is a renowned graph and design theorist with more than 100 publications to his credit. He co-authored the textbook “Coding Theory and Cryptography: The Essentials,” and also has been awarded the College of Science and Mathematics Dean’s Research Award.

The Troy University Sexual Assault and Violence Education (S.A.V.E.) Project will play host to a campus-wide campaign during April in observance of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

As part of the April campaign, the S.A.V.E. Project will place posters, banners, and safety and prevention flyers around the Troy Campus, as well as sharing statistics and information on Facebook and Twitter.

On April 10, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the S.A.V.E. Project will hold its annual “These Hands Don’t Hurt” event on the Bibb Graves Quad. Students, faculty and staff are invited to come place their handprints on the event banner to signify their commitment to a violence-free campus. Once complete, the banner will display in the Trojan Center.

“Through the sharing of this information and our ‘These Hands’ event we hope to educate the campus community about the occurrence of sexual violence and hopefully prevent it from happening,” said Jennifer Duncan, assistant coordinator for the S.A.V.E. Project. “We also hope to make students aware of the services offered through the S.A.V.E. Project in the event they are ever exposed to sexual violence.”