Fashion Week events set to inspire and encourage young women at Evangel

Promoting healthy body image, confidence and self-esteem for Evangel’s female students, Fashion Week kicks off at Evangel University on Monday, March 11, 2012.

This year’s theme is Unveiled: Uncovering the Past, Reclaiming the Future.

The  focus is on helping women find identity in Christ rather than basing it on the expectations of society, says senior Mehleena Edmonds, chair of the 12-member, student committee that plans the Fashion Fever events.

“We are taking ownership of our lives as new creations,” Edmonds says. “We don’t have to hide from our past or be ashamed of who we used to be. We are reclaiming our future because we have turned from the ways of our past.”

Kerry Marsh, Counseling Services staff member, says the theme also reinforces the importance of positive self-image for women.

A women-only Chapel service will be held on Monday, March 11, at 7 p.m., in the Barnett Recital Hall. Edmonds will be the speaker for this event.

Each women’s residence hall on campus will host events to take place on Tuesday, March 12, and an event organized by Evangel’s Counseling Services will take place on Wednesday, March 13, at 10 a.m. in the lower level of the student union.

The main event, Fashion Fever, begins at 9 p.m. on Thursday, March 14. The event is open to all Evangel University students, staff and faculty.

The night will showcase fashion, hors d’oeuvres and an inspirational message by Casey Gibbons, author of A Girls Life with God, co-founder of Cherish Kids and mother of five daughters. She is married to Scotty Gibbons, student ministries director at James River Assembly of God in Ozark, Missouri.

“This is an amazing event for the girls on this campus. It is an opportunity for us to come together and have a night away from school assignments,” Edmonds says. “We feel empowered and inspired by the potential we see in each other.”

This annual event also is a fundraiser, and this year, each residence hall is collecting personal hygiene items for the Boys & Girls Town of Springfield. The floor that donates the most items will be treated to VIP seating at the event. Profits from the sale of T-shirts and other merchandise also will be donated to the Boys & Girls Town.

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Elon employees recognized as top young leaders in the Triad

Philip Craft and Brian Baker join the 2013 Class of 40 Leaders Under 40 in the Triad.

Philip Craft (l) and Brian Baker, Elon employees honored for their leadership by The Business Journal

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The Business Journal of the Triad recently named Elon employees Brian Baker and Philip Craft to its annual list of 40 Leaders under 40, a group of outstanding young professionals in the Triad recognized for past accomplishments and potential in the future.

Baker, Elon’s assistant vice president for university advancement and Craft, who serves as director of communications for Elon University School of Law, were honored alongside other award recipients at a Feb. 28 presentation at UNC-Greensboro’s Elliott University Center.

Brian Baker joined Elon University as a major gifts officer in September 2005, and most recently served as executive director of major and planned giving before assuming his current role as assistant vice president for university advancement in October 2012. In this role, Baker leads all major gift fundraising efforts for Elon, including current campaigns to build a new Admissions Welcome Center and complete a major expansion of Elon’s School of Communications. Other areas of responsibility include planned giving, foundation relations and prospect research. Baker also serves as liaison to the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business.

He played an integral role in the Ever Elon campaign, the university’s largest and most successful fundraising campaign to date, which was completed in December 2011 and raised over $107 million. Before coming to Elon, Baker spent five years at the University of Louisville, first in athletics and then as associate director of development.

In the community, he has served for multiple seasons as a youth soccer coach for the Town of Gibsonville Parks and Recreation department. He recently concluded a four-year term as board member of Olde Forest Racquet Club, serving as board president in the final year of his term. Baker is a board member of the Alamance Junior Tennis Foundation, an organization that coordinates and funds various programs to promote youth tennis in the Alamance County community.

Baker is a graduate of Wake Forest University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in communications and minored in journalism. He lives in Burlington, N.C., with wife Katy and their two children, Jack and Andrew.

Since joining Elon in 2009, Craft has worked in collaboration with his colleagues in university communications to produce national communications campaigns about Elon University School of Law. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education has recognized these campaigns with three Awards of Excellence since 2010. In addition, Craft was instrumental in producing the application that led to the 2012 designation of Elon Law by The National Jurist as one of “America’s 20 most innovative law schools.”

Craft’s volunteer and civic involvement includes service as chair of the Friends of Center City Park Steering Committee in Greensboro, founder and chair of Project Greenway, an advocacy group of young professionals formed to urge completion of Greensboro’s Downtown Greenway based on its projected economic benefits for the city, membership in Leadership Greensboro’s Class of 2013 and lifetime membership in The Future Fund of The Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro.

Prior to joining Elon Law, Craft served seven years as deputy chief of staff and press secretary for U.S. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, and three years as director of communications and marketing for City Parks Foundation, a New York City community building organization.

He holds a master’s degree in communications from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree in communications, politics and law from Emerson College in Boston. A resident of Greensboro, Craft is married to Betsy McKibbon Craft and they have two children, Peter and William.

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by Megan McClure, Staff Last Updated - 3/1/2013

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Elon employees recognized as top young leaders in the Triad

Philip Craft and Brian Baker join the 2013 Class of 40 Leaders Under 40 in the Triad.

Philip Craft (l) and Brian Baker, Elon employees honored for their leadership by The Business Journal

 *****

The Business Journal of the Triad recently named Elon employees Brian Baker and Philip Craft to its annual list of 40 Leaders under 40, a group of outstanding young professionals in the Triad recognized for past accomplishments and potential in the future.

Baker, Elon’s assistant vice president for university advancement and Craft, who serves as director of communications for Elon University School of Law, will be honored alongside other award recipients at a Feb. 28 presentation at UNC-Greensboro’s Elliott University Center.

Brian Baker joined Elon University as a major gifts officer in September 2005, and most recently served as executive director of major and planned giving before assuming his current role as assistant vice president for university advancement in October 2012. In this role, Baker leads all major gift fundraising efforts for Elon, including current campaigns to build a new Admissions Welcome Center and complete a major expansion of Elon’s School of Communications. Other areas of responsibility include planned giving, foundation relations and prospect research. Baker also serves as liaison to the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business.

He played an integral role in the Ever Elon campaign, the university’s largest and most successful fundraising campaign to date, which was completed in December 2011 and raised over $107 million. Before coming to Elon, Baker spent five years at the University of Louisville, first in athletics and then as associate director of development.

In the community, he has served for multiple seasons as a youth soccer coach for the Town of Gibsonville Parks and Recreation department. He recently concluded a four-year term as board member of Olde Forest Racquet Club, serving as board president in the final year of his term. Baker is a board member of the Alamance Junior Tennis Foundation, an organization that coordinates and funds various programs to promote youth tennis in the Alamance County community.

Baker is a graduate of Wake Forest University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in communications and minored in journalism. He lives in Burlington, N.C., with wife Katy and their two children, Jack and Andrew.

Since joining Elon in 2009, Craft has worked in collaboration with his colleagues in university communications to produce national communications campaigns about Elon University School of Law. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education has recognized these campaigns with three Awards of Excellence since 2010. In addition, Craft was instrumental in producing the application that led to the 2012 designation of Elon Law by The National Jurist as one of “America’s 20 most innovative law schools.”

Craft’s volunteer and civic involvement includes service as chair of the Friends of Center City Park Steering Committee in Greensboro, founder and chair of Project Greenway, an advocacy group of young professionals formed to urge completion of Greensboro’s Downtown Greenway based on its projected economic benefits for the city, membership in Leadership Greensboro’s Class of 2013 and lifetime membership in The Future Fund of The Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro.

Prior to joining Elon Law, Craft served seven years as deputy chief of staff and press secretary for U.S. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, and three years as director of communications and marketing for City Parks Foundation, a New York City community building organization.

He holds a master’s degree in communications from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree in communications, politics and law from Emerson College in Boston. A resident of Greensboro, Craft is married to Betsy McKibbon Craft and they have two children, Peter and William.

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by Megan McClure, Staff Last Updated - 2/28/2013

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The Young Artists Series presents Kate Liu, award-winning pianist

3 p.m., Sunday, January 27, 2013
Lawrence A. Wien Experimental Theatre
Quick Center for the Arts
Free Admission

Award-winning pianist Kate Liu performs at 3 p.m., on Sunday, January 27, 2013, in Fairfield University's Lawrence A. Wien Experimental Theatre, located in the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. The concert is part of the Quick Center's Young Artists Series and is presented in association with The Stecher and Horowitz Foundation. Admission is free and open to the public.

Kate Liu was born in Singapore in 1994 and began playing the piano when she was four years old. She moved to the United States with her family when she was eight years of age. She won the Illinois Junior Music Teachers National Association Competition in 2007 and 2008 and both the Junior and Senior Divisions of the Chicago Steinway Competition in 2006 and 2007 respectively, and performed on the Young Steinway Concert Series in 2007. In 2008, Ms. Liu won Second Prize in the International Institute for Young Musicians Competition, and received honors in the regionals of the Junior MTNA Competition.

In 2010, at the age of 16, she won First Prize at the Fifth New York International Piano Competition, a biennial event presented under the auspices of The Stecher and Horowitz Foundation. She was also the Prize Winner for Best Performance of the Required Contemporary Work by Avner Dorman. Ms. Liu was a scholarship recipient and student of the Music Institute of Chicago's Academy program for gifted pre-college musicians, where she studied privately with artist faculty member Alan Chow and Emilio Del Rosario

She was also featured on WTTW Chicago's "Tonight" show. Following an audition held by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Kate was chosen to perform with the internationally renowned pianist Lang Lang and also to participate in his master class. She played Schubert's Fantasy in F minor, one-piano, four hands with Lang Lang in two concerts at the Symphony Center in Chicago in November, 2008. That year, she also performed a live recital on WFMT radio's Introductions Program.

In March of 2009, she traveled with the Music Institute of Chicago to the east coast where she performed at Weill Hall, at Carnegie Hall in New York City, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In October of 2009, she won the Junior Division of the Louisiana International Piano Competition. In July, 2010 she performed Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Cleveland Orchestra as a finalist of the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition, receiving Third Prize.

Kate Liu has performed with the Skokie Symphony Orchestra in Illinois, and in New York at Temple Emanu-El, the Ossining Public Library, The Park Avenue Christian Church and the Bohemian Club. Ms. Liu is the recipient of a scholarship from the Chopin Foundation of the United States and has also been featured on NPR's "From the Top." During the 2011 season, Kate Liu's recital at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. "confirmed a burgeoning talent and a musical poise well beyond her years. She is already a pianist worth leaving home to hear" according to The Washington Post.

Kate Liu entered Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in the fall of 2012 to begin her undergraduate studies with Robert McDonald.

The Stecher and Horowitz Foundation, through its flagship program, The New York International Piano Competition, is committed to furthering the education, recognition and fostering of a new generation of talented young musicians, directly serving pianists ages 16-21. The Foundation helps aspirants achieve their personal and professional goals through mentoring, career guidance, artistic development, and performance opportunities throughout the year.

For Quick Center Box Office information, call (203) 254-4010, or toll-free 1-877-ARTS-396 (1-877-278-7396). Visit online at www.quickcenter.com.

The Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts is located on the campus of Fairfield University at 1073 North Benson Road in Fairfield, Connecticut. Entrance to the Quick Center is through the Barlow Road gate at 200 Barlow Road. Free, secure parking is available. Access for people with disabilities is available throughout the Quick Center for audience members and performers. Hearing amplification devices are available upon request at the Box Office. Fairfield University is located off exit 22 of Interstate-95. For further information and directions, call (203) 254-4010 or 1-877-278-7396, or visit www.quickcenter.com.

Media Contact: Mike Horyczun, (203) 254-4000 ext. 2647, mhoryczun@fairfield.edu

Posted on January 09, 2013

Vol. 45, No. 148

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