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Twelve incoming freshmen arrived this week for �þ���'s annual Pre-Serve program to give back to the local community before they begin classes in the fall.

�þ���’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning has started a two-year research seminar, “Critical Transitions: Writing and the Question of Transfer,” that will explore the composition skills students learn in the classroom and use in new settings, such as an upper level course, an internship or the workplace.

They want to buy more books for their middle schools and renovate bathrooms with fresh paint. They’d also like to expand extracurricular programs, and introduce biodegradable trays to the lunchroom. For students in the Alamance Youth Leadership Academy, Wednesday morning’s closing ceremony in McKinnon Hall was a time to share school improvement projects for the year ahead with parents and local educators.

Student leaders collected more than $28,000 this year from seniors, their parents, grandparents and friends through the Senior Class Giving Campaign, which asked students to make a gift to the area of campus that meant the most to their experience while at Elon.

Why do sports teams perform better in their own stadiums or arenas than they do on the road? New research by assistant professor L. Kimberly Epting and Kristen Riggs ’10 suggests that it may not be the overwhelming applause that gives athletes a “home field advantage,” so much as it is the taunts that can ding their opponent.

�þ��� from a half dozen Alamance County middle schools will conclude the 2011 Alamance Youth Leadership Academy on Wednesday morning with presentations to parents and school leaders on how they plan to improve their building communities with potential yearlong projects for 2011-2012.

Fifteen rising juniors at Elon have been named recipients of the 2011 Lumen Prize, the university’s premier award that comes with a $15,000 scholarship to support and celebrate their academic achievements and research proposals.

Elon Phoenix head football coach Jason Swepson and his coaching staff welcomed student athletes from Heritage High School, Chapel Hill High School and Apex High School for a three-day football camp held this month on �þ���’s campus. Learn more about the camp by watching a short video produced the Office of University Relations.

�þ��� welcomed dozens of Alamance County high school scholars to campus midday Monday with a special College Coffee for students enrolled in the Elon Academy, an intensive three-year college access and success program for talented local teenagers with financial need or no family history of attending college.

Haya Ajjan, an assistant professor of management information systems, and Gary Palin, executive director of the Doherty Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and senior lecturer of entrepreneurship in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, presented a June 17 workshop in the 2011 International Council for Small Business World Conference in Stockholm, Sweden.