The activities’ goals included:

• Strengthening collaboration and teamwork
• Practicing effective communication and group decision-making
• Understanding the importance of listening to and valuing everyone’s perspectives
• Reflecting on ways teams can improve their approach to working together

For the workshop, “Purposeful Playful Collaboration and Teams,” Darfour-Oduro welcomed Daniella Alonzo Lopez from �þ���’s Center for Design Thinking to work with her students in the Global Health class.

The students were first divided into groups, and each group was asked to build the tallest tower possible using Brain Flakes toys. Before beginning, students discussed and developed a strategy for approaching the challenge and achieving their goal. After completing their towers, the students shared their experiences and discussed what worked well within their groups and what they could have improved to build a taller tower. This reflection encouraged students to look beyond the success of their final outcomes and consider how their approach, communication, and teamwork influenced the results.

Darfour-Oduro shared that the workshop was designed to prepare students for group projects in the Global Health class. For the project, each student will be assigned a country and will work in groups organized according to the World Health Organization (WHO) regions.

The workshop emphasized the importance of skills that extend beyond the classroom and into the field of global health, where addressing complex health challenges often require individuals with diverse perspectives and experiences to collaborate toward a shared goal.

Members of the �þ��� School of Law Advisory Board gathered in Greensboro this week for their regular fall meeting, providing strategic guidance and professional insights to university and law school administrators while devoting significant time to students through panel discussions and small-group mentoring conversations shared over meals.

The 21-member board includes prominent attorneys, judges and business leaders from across the country who advise Elon Law and �þ��� leaders on the law school’s development and strategic direction.

A Wednesday, Sept. 16, panel featured Jennifer Bowden L’09, principal at R. Steve Bowden & Associates; Marla Crawford, general counsel at Cimplifi; and Gerald Walden G’14, general counsel at The Fresh Market. Student Bar Association President Trey McClenny L’26 moderated.

Their conversation offered students practical advice drawn from careers spanning private practice, corporate law, litigation and emerging legal technology. Among their key takeaways:

Treat law school like your first professional job.

Bowden encouraged students to take advantage of access to professors and seek their guidance rather than trying to navigate difficult material alone. Walden similarly urged students to make law school a priority and to be intentional about learning from classmates who excel in different legal areas, as well as faculty.

Stay open to where a legal career can lead.

All three panelists described careers that evolved in directions they hadn’t necessarily anticipated in law school. Crawford encouraged students not to arrive with a fixed idea of where they must end up. Opportunities others overlook, she said, can sometimes become defining moments in a career. For her, that arose through first managing discovery, which became her specialty and led to managing the nation’s first electronic discovery case in the complex Enron case that began in 2001. She then leveraged that skill to become an expert in technology and the law, and is now focused on AI.

Get legal experience (even if it isn’t your dream job).

The panelists emphasized internships, summer work and other law-related opportunities as ways to test practice areas and workplace environments. �þ��� can learn as much from discovering what they don’t enjoy as from finding an immediate fit.

Build relationships deliberately.

Walden reminded students that their professional networks already include the classmates sitting beside them. When meeting practicing attorneys, he advised students to follow up, reference the conversation and give the attorney something memorable to know about their own interests and goals.

Referencing a specific conversation and expressing interest in continuing it can help turn a brief introduction into a meaningful professional connection, he said.

The panel was only one part of the board’s interaction with students. Members joined students for a community dinner in the Elon Law Library on Wednesday, Sept. 16, creating opportunities for informal conversations about careers, law school and professional life.

Those connections continued Thursday, Sept. 17, when board members met with students in smaller mentoring conversations over lunch.

The interactions reflect Elon Law’s emphasis on connecting students with practicing attorneys, judges and other leaders throughout their legal education, as well as the Advisory Board’s dedication to providing top-notch law school experience to law students as they develop professional networks and clearer understanding of opportunities available.

It started as a conversation between friends. A memory from the Ecuadorian Amazon. A question asked after a trip that left them curious about guayusa, a leaf long consumed by Indigenous communities for focus and energy. It had become months of supplier calls, product tests, faculty feedback, formulation decisions and late nights spent figuring out how to turn a shared vision into something real.

Now, the plant-based energy drink they built together is ready for distribution and is being sold at The Oak House at Elon.

For Vargas-Lopez and Chiriboga, the milestone carries them back to McEwen Dining Hall on campus, where their friendship began during their first year at Elon in 2022.

Chiriboga, an entrepreneurship major from Quito, Ecuador, and Vargas-Lopez, a sport management major from Austin, Texas, quickly connected over language, culture, soccer and a shared curiosity about the world. They became close friends long before they became business partners.

The idea for YAPA came later, after Chiriboga brought Vargas-Lopez to visit his home country during Thanksgiving break of their sophomore year. It was Vargas-Lopez’s first time in South America, and the trip included time in the Amazon rainforest, where the two were struck by what Chiriboga describes as the “immensity” of the Amazon, from its abundance of life to the plants that have long shaped daily living in the region.

“We came back from visiting the Amazon forest and were just talking through the trip,” Vargas-Lopez says. “That’s when the idea came out. What if we took one of those plants and built a drink around it?”

That question became YAPA, a plant-based energy drink made from guayusa and a larger idea of giving people something more than expected.

The company’s name comes from an Andean expression. In Ecuador, “yapa” refers to a small token added with generosity. At a market, it might be an extra piece of fruit. At a family table, it might be a little more food on someone’s plate.

“It’s a little extra you were not expecting,” Chiriboga says. “That is what we want the product to feel like.”

Building From the Ground Up

Once the idea took hold, Vargas-Lopez and Chiriboga began studying the beverage industry, talking with community members in Ecuador, seeking feedback from mentors and testing whether their concept could become a real business.

They were drawn to the growing interest in cleaner, more transparent beverage options.

“I think the issue we were looking at was the energy drink industry and what a lot of those products contain,” Chiriboga says. “We saw people looking more for clean-label, natural ingredients and more transparency in what they consume.”

That focus helped define YAPA’s direction. They describe the drink as plant-based and made without preservatives, with an emphasis on ingredient transparency, quality and sourcing. Its ingredients include guayusa along with hibiscus, turmeric, ginger, prebiotics and electrolytes, each chosen with a purpose.

For the founders, the product also carries a connection to the place that inspired it.

We came back from visiting the Amazon forest and were just talking through the trip. That’s when the idea came out. What if we took one of those plants and built a drink around it? — Bernardo Vargas-Lopez ’26

In the Amazon, Chiriboga says, guayusa is traditionally consumed in community. People gather early in the morning, drink together and share their dreams before beginning the day. The leaf is associated with focus and energy, but not the jittery rush often linked with conventional energy drinks.

“It gives you that mental clarity and that energy that you need without being hyper,” Chiriboga says.

Turning that inspiration into a company required more than enthusiasm. The two spent months working through sourcing, formulation, packaging, shipping, pricing and compliance while balancing college life.

They also made early decisions about where they would not compromise, even when higher standards meant harder financial choices.

“We decided there were a few strategic points where we would not go for lower quality,” Chiriboga says. “Starting from ingredients and sourcing, we were not going to sacrifice what the product stands for.”

Asking the Right Questions

Both founders say their experience in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business gave them the confidence to approach YAPA not as a finished idea, but as something to test, refine and keep improving.

They turned to faculty members including Sean McMahon, professor of entrepreneurship; Elena Kennedy, associate professor of entrepreneurship; and Brittany Mercado, associate professor of management and chair of the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship.

“The ability to communicate clearly with people who know a lot more than we do has been huge,” Vargas-Lopez says. “The Love School of Business does an amazing job of making professors approachable.”

As YAPA developed, informal conversations became intentional. They stayed after class, brought specific questions to faculty and connected what they were learning in their courses to the choices they were making for the company. The feedback was not always easy, and that was part of its value.

“We don’t need people to just cheerlead,” Vargas-Lopez says. “We need people who will tell us what worked, what didn’t and how to improve. That’s what has really helped us move forward.”

Their time studying abroad also shaped the venture. Chiriboga was in Japan while
Vargas-Lopez was in Australia, making day-to-day operations difficult, so they used the distance to listen.

“We couldn’t really work on operations, so the only thing we could do was talk to people,” Chiriboga says.

They spoke with people in the Amazon, professionals at large companies and mentors in finance, gathering insight before returning to campus.

“We were sponges during that time,” Chiriboga says. “We just gathered as much information as we could.”

A Friendship First

Before they were co-founders, Vargas-Lopez and Chiriboga were friends. They built the kind of trust that later became essential to starting a company together. When one person could not take on a task, the other stepped in. When the work became overwhelming, the friendship helped steady them.

“If I cannot do something right now, I know Juan Daniel can do it, and vice versa,” Vargas-Lopez says. “That trust was built before the business.”

Living together strengthened that rhythm. It also taught them the importance of boundaries.

“We’ve gotten really good at knowing when to talk business and when not to,” Chiriboga says. “If it’s not working time, we try to focus on being friends and being present with other people.”

For Vargas-Lopez, the partnership has been less about dividing every task evenly and more about sharing responsibility over time.

“It’s not always 50-50 all the time,” he says. “But we know we’re in this together, and that makes it easier to handle everything that comes up.”

For Chiriboga, building YAPA with his best friend has been one of the most meaningful parts of the experience.

“I couldn’t be more grateful that my best friend is also my business partner,” he says.

Now based in Austin, Vargas-Lopez and Chiriboga are carrying YAPA into its next stage. The venture that started as a conversation between friends has become something people can open, taste and share.

The process has changed how they think about risk, learning and what it means to build something from scratch. It has also reinforced the value of starting before everything feels certain.

“Don’t be afraid to start,” Chiriboga says. “If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will.”

Vargas-Lopez says the venture has taught him to stay open to what others know and humble enough to keep asking questions.

“Use your resources,” he says. “Ask questions. Learn from every conversation. We haven’t had a single meeting where we didn’t learn something.”

The Power+Place Collaborative encourages �þ��� students to break outside of the “Elon bubble” to engage, learn and integrate with the Alamance County community. The Collaborative sets out to record, preserve, present and celebrate diverse stories through collecting oral histories from community members, with a goal of creating an inclusive future deeply rooted in community strength and resilience.

“We are different communities living in one city, so it’s very encouraging for me that some other communities are introduced to me and that there is intermingling and coexistence,” Arshad Sheikh, one of the “Cultivating Community” storytellers, said.

For this fall’s collection of stories, the Center for Design Thinking’s director Danielle Lake is collaborating with �þ��� associate professor of geography Sandy Marshall’s Global Migrations class, centered on the topics of migration, mobility and borders; in addition to professor of Spanish Nina Namaste’s Latinos in the U.S. class.

“We’ve always wanted these stories to be able to connect not just students, but community members and the broader community,” Marshall said. “This has really manifested a vision of intergenerational and intercultural connections of learning.”

The students in these classes will have the opportunity to interview eight different storytellers from Alamance County about their experiences in cultivating community bonds. The event at the Dream Center served as an introductory opportunity for the students to meet their storytellers. The Dream Center is a gathering place that serves as a “hub of activity” to cultivate a sense of belonging within the community, making it an important location for this impactful kickoff.

“I want to provide a listening ear and make Teresa’s story feel heard and validated,” Braeden Cullen said about his designated storyteller, Teresa Sanchez, whom he will be interviewing later in the semester.

The interviews students are conducting will be filmed by Power+Place Collaborative’s student filmmakers: Sandy Orozco-Ronaldo, Jordan Armstead and Natalie Alascia-Dittfurth. These interviews will premiere on Dec. 1 at the Power+Place Collaborative public screening event at the Elon Community Church. Interested participants can register to attend the public screening using the online or on the Power+Place Collaborative’s webpage to attend the public screening. Virtual participants can .

Criminal doctrine claims to distinguish morally culpable action from conduct driven by severe mental disease or defect. Yet in practice, society remains deeply resistant to extending even minimal grace when punishment is at stake. We love to punish, and we distrust anything that resembles an excuse. The defendant before me needed treatment; he needed help. But within a system oriented toward retribution, illness collapses into guilt. The institutional response becomes predictable: contain, control and confine the beast.

Nothing in a casebook prepared me for the raw immediacy of a mind splintered long before the law judged him.

His delusions dominated the evidence. I listened to voicemails he left after beating his mother beyond recognition with the leg of a table. He referred to himself as a Navy SEAL and carried on a conversation with someone who existed only in his mind. The forensic psychiatrist explained how his inward and outward projections tethered him to an alternate reality. In that reality, CIA agents listened through devices in his teeth and loved ones were replaced by alien spies.

The murder scene reflected this fractured world: He believed he had killed the alien inhabiting his mother’s body and attempted to give her a new one. He called his family and described the event in a chilling voice that even his social worker said didn’t sound like him.

As the psychiatrist detailed the defendant’s psychosis, the voices that commanded him and the delusional system shaping his actions, I felt the weight of the law’s expectations pressing against the limits of human cognition. We ask jurors — ordinary people with no psychiatric training — to translate hallucinations and delusions into legal categories.

Mental illness exists on a scientific spectrum. Insanity, by contrast, is a legal term of art. South Carolina, like many states moving away from the insanity defense, is taking a giant leap in the wrong direction.

A finding of “not criminally responsible” due to paranoid schizophrenia should carry substantial moral and legal weight, yet it rarely moves a modern jury. Cultural narratives about personal responsibility and dangerousness prime jurors to distrust the very concept. To compound the problem, South Carolina provides no instruction about the consequences of a verdict. Courts warn that “focusing on outcomes could prejudice the jury,” leaving jurors to choose among vague constructs like “Guilty but Mentally Ill” (GBMI), a verdict functionally indistinguishable from guilty. GBMI reflects a deeper cultural shift: Mental illness itself is becoming morally blameworthy.

That trial stayed with me. It revealed the limits of our current system and the urgency of reform. It pushed me to study GBMI, juror misunderstanding and the consequences of sanism in criminal adjudication. If justice is to mean anything for defendants whose minds break from reality, the law must bridge the gap between doctrine and science.

Tarrah Casey L’26 is a third-year student at Elon Law and presented her research on how courts evaluate remorse in sentencing autistic defendants at the 2025 Autism Law Summit. She completed her Residency-in-Practice, Elon Law’s signature experiential learning program in which students learn the law by praticing it, at Sarratt & Horta Vorse, P.A., in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

This summer, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Safia Swimelar teaches New York City: Living in the Global Community using the city as a microcosm to help students understand the diversity and complexity of global humanity. The course explores the meaning of NYC as a global city and how cultural, political and economic aspects of globalization are reflected and visualized there.

“Even though I teach political science, we’re talking about the globalization of hip-hop, food, 9/11, identity and culture,” Swimelar says. “They all fit the idea of New York as a global city.”

�þ��� spend Monday through Thursday interning in industries ranging from finance and marketing to communications and graphic design. On Fridays, everyone comes together for weekly seminars, encouraging students to connect their workplace experiences with broader discussions around globalization, identity and culture.

In true Elon fashion, learning extends beyond the classroom. “We try to match the academic topic with some kind of hands-on experience, whether that’s a museum, a tour or meeting people in the community,” Swimelar says. This summer’s experiential learning opportunities included a visit to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, a World Cup watch party, a Juneteenth celebration in Central Park, a performance of “Ragtime” on Broadway, the Pride Parade, a tour of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, an international food tour in Queens and a private tour of the New York Stock Exchange, to name a few.

At its core, the course is about helping students understand the world from a new perspective. “I really want them to understand that the United States — and every city in it — is inherently connected to the rest of the world,” Swimelar says. “The global is everywhere.”

By the end of the summer, students bring home much more than academic knowledge and internship experience. Living in Brooklyn, navigating the subway and working full-time internships provide a realistic glimpse into life in one of the world’s largest cities.

“For many of them, this is the first time they feel like they’re actually living here instead of just visiting,” Swimelar says. “When I read their journals each week, many are saying, ‘I think I really do want to move to New York.’”

Whether students pursue careers in business, the arts, communications, finance or public policy, Swimelar hopes they leave New York with a deeper appreciation for the people, cultures and ideas that shape communities both locally and globally.

About the Professor

Professor Safia Swimelar has taught political science and policy studies at Elon since 2008. Her �þ��� and research focus on international relations, human rights, European politics, global studies and film and politics. As a former Fulbright Scholar, Swimelar draws on her international experience to help students better understand global politics and contemporary issues.

Recommended Materials

• “The Colossus of New York,” by Colson Whitehead
• “Hip hop’s Enduring Echo: From New York’s Streets to Global Beats,” The Elephant, 2023
• “America After 9/11,” PBS Frontline documentary

Vision — the creation, then pursuit of it — changes the world.

In recent months, I have had the pleasure of experiencing the culmination of faculty vision for student success in profound moments. One was this past spring in New York City’s Carnegie Hall, where the Elon Wind Ensemble performed the closing act of the 24th Annual New York Wind Band Festival. Faculty members worked closely with students to produce a magnificent performance that filled the hall with breathtaking joy and marked the university’s first appearance in the storied venue — a historic and wonderful realization of our vision for excellence in the performing arts.

This summer, sitting in the heart of the Medici Palace in Florence, Italy, I watched another vision come to life as students, joined by Italian and American performers, brought a first to the city: a production of the musical “The Light in the Piazza.” Associate Teaching Professor of Music Polly Cornelius first imagined the idea two years earlier, then worked with our partners in Florence and her colleagues in the Department of Performing Arts to make it a reality. Her vision was felt by us all as we watched the students and actors perform to the sold-out audience.

These are among the many visionary moments inspired by our mission to engage and mentor students throughout their learning journeys and help them achieve more than they imagined for themselves during college. Possibility begins with learning and experience, and it ultimately leads to growth.

This year I’ve also been working diligently with the university’s trustees on a different kind of vision — one that adds another pillar to our foundation, looks out ahead to the next century and asks how we can prepare �þ���to meet the emerging landscape of higher education from a continued position of strength and innovation. Our merger with Queens, successfully approved by our accreditor and now in process with the Department of Education, brings that vision closer to reality.

Faculty and staff members from both campuses have been imagining potential programs together, and the growing list is full of exciting possibilities.

When people imagine innovation, they often think of a single “eureka” moment, like Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone call or Thomas Edison’s filament beginning to glow. But scholars have shown that innovation is more often one idea leading to another until, further downstream, someone shouts “eureka!” and a vision becomes reality, perhaps in Carnegie Hall or the Medici Palace.

Most importantly, through bold vision and shared commitment to our mission, ideas advance, lives are transformed and the world becomes a better place.

Executive Director of the Core Curriculum and Associate Professor of Music and Education Matt Buckmaster was invited to join a panel to share insights on general education assessment using the AAC&U VALUE rubrics.

Part of AAC&U’s VALUE Week webinar series, the panel was titled “Doing the Work: How Institutions Are Using VALUE Rubrics to Understand Student Learning.”  Buckmaster shared Elon’s process and design to student learning assessment in the Core Curriculum, including the successes and challenges encountered in the process.

Elon’s emphasis on engaged learning and student-centered curriculum led to very positive outcomes, and areas for continued improvement were able to be identified as well. The investment Elon has made in assessment in the Core Curriculum will inform faculty development opportunities, course and assignment design resources, and potentially future curriculum revisions.

�þ��� is a member of the .

Over the course of the retreat, fellows practiced listening across difference, questioning their assumptions and engaging perspectives that challenged their own. The goal was not to make disagreement disappear. �þ��� explored how curiosity can create space for people to stay engaged when they see an issue differently.

For Elon fellow Audrey Schultz, Elon’s Better Together Coordinator, that is one of the most important lessons she is bringing home.

“One thing I plan to bring to Elon from the Viewpoints Fellowship Retreat is the promotion and facilitation of dialogue and curious disagreement in spaces that don’t typically focus on them,” Schultz said. “Leaders, in any capacity, can learn these skills and should understand their significance.”

Through structured exercises, case studies, and facilitated dialogue, fellows had opportunities to practice those skills in real time. They considered how assumptions shape conversations, how people respond when they feel challenged, and how curiosity can open the door to perspectives that might otherwise be dismissed.

Sanai Crosby of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority found the experience particularly useful for thinking about how to remain engaged across disagreement.

“I learned how to create curious and intentional dialogue, share my perspective, and respectfully disagree with others while still working toward understanding,” Crosby said.

That learning extended beyond the retreat sessions themselves. Fellows met students from universities around the world and encountered experiences and perspectives different from their own.

For Crosby, the experience reinforced an important principle about dialogue: understanding can exist even when people disagree.

“It challenged me to learn from perspectives and experiences different from my own. “The retreat reminded me that meaningful conversations do not require agreement,” Crosby said. “But they require openness, curiosity and a willingness to understand.”

For Hillary Zaken, director of multifaith engagement at Elon’s Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life, who serves as campus advisor to the cohort, that willingness to remain in conversation represents an important shift in campus culture.

“We want to help shape a campus culture where students feel empowered to come to the table, even when they know they may disagree,” Zaken said. “Curiosity gives students a way to stay engaged with one another, ask questions, and consider perspectives they may not share using the techniques of active empathetic listening. That space is where meaningful learning and personal leadership development happens.”

That approach to dialogue is central to the work of the Viewpoints Project, a nonprofit that empowers young people to approach disagreement with curiosity. Through the Viewpoints Fellowship, students develop practices for navigating difficult conversations and bring those practices back to the communities where they lead.

The partnership also reflects the Truitt Center’s commitment to helping Elon students engage meaningfully across difference. By connecting student leadership development with dialogue education, the program allows fellows to practice these skills within the organizations and communities they already serve.

Elon’s 2026-27 Viewpoints Fellows are Brayden Morrison, Club Ultimate Frisbee; Audrey Schultz, Better Together; Emily Wright, Asian Pacific Student Association; Addison Anderson, Leaders in Interfaith team; Rachel Bermont, Hillel; Skylar Winter, Student Government Association; and Sanai Crosby, Alpha Kappa Alpha.

Sasha Stanley, a 2025-26 Fellow, has returned to the Viewpoints Fellowship as a Peer Mentor, helping fellows on campuses across the country engage in curious disagreement.

Their work at Elon will continue throughout the academic year as they bring ideas from Minneapolis into the clubs and organizations they lead. The fellowship culminates with a campus-wide capstone project in the spring.

For the Truitt Center, the retreat represents an ongoing investment in students as facilitators and leaders who can help create space for meaningful engagement across difference. The experience in Minneapolis gives these seven students a shared set of practices to draw on as they continue that work at Elon.

Plain White T’s headlined last year with over 2,000 alumni, students and friends in attendance! As a fan-favorite Homecoming event, Rock the Block will once again transform into a full music festival experience featuring a variety of food trucks, a bar, activities and an end-of-night fireworks show.

O’Neal will perform from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Rock the Block and the Homecoming Concert are open to all members of the Elon community for free, so register for today!