On Aug. 28, 2010, the University welcomed some - Reinhardt ...

Satre said small classes help students
bond. “They are more active with study
groups and more apt to talk outside class,”
she said. Working together successfully is
critical in science, said Santoro. “Especially
in research, you need to be collaborative,”
she said. “You don’t do anything alone.”
Students are also doing research. This
October, students studied the deciduous
forest that borders Lake Huron. Another
group went to Kentucky to collect salamander
samples. “If someone wants to go
to med school, we can give them an advantage
by spending time... with a research
project and helping them develop their
critical thinking, writing and presentation
skills,” Felix said. “Spending time with the
students; that’s our edge.”
Students are also getting published. Last
year, four students presented at an Association
of Southeastern Biologists conference.
Posters are how younger scientists present
their work, said Santoro. They create a
graphical representation of their research,
then scientists and students come by and
Left: Lee Lamb (left) and Taylor Barnes
consult their notes as they work on a dissection
project.
Below: Dr. Irma Santoro (left) enjoys continuing
to teach students in actual labs.
“At other places, instruction is moving
more and more to computers. You don’t
often see wet labs any more. You see schools
doing genetic experiments on computers
on virtual fruit flies. They sit in front of
their own computer screens, by themselves,
not working together. That’s not modeling
how real science is done.”
ask questions. The abstracts get published,
and the posters qualify as their first formal
publication.”
Another advantage is Reinhardt’s location.
“Our environment, our campus, becomes
part of class,” said Santoro. “We go
look for bugs or down to the lake to get
a water sample. That brings it together. If
you provide everything, it’s like a child who
has no idea where fruit and vegetables come
from because they’ve never grown anything
from a seed. Here they can put the two together
because they can collect the things
they’ll be doing the research on. The circle
can become complete.”
Growing Program Produces Needs
As the science programs have grown
and the faculty expertise expanded, more
needs have developed. “Our group has
been a point of excellence for 20 years, but
we... haven’t had the staff or the facilities
to support large numbers,” Robertson said.
“Now we have the staff, and we’re pushing
our physical boundaries in terms of space.”
Reinhardt President Dr. J. Thomas Isherwood
recognizes these needs. “As we’ve
expanded in the sciences, there’s a critical
need for more laboratories and more technical
equipment,” he said.
The faculty also need the resources to
perform research. “These faculty have to
do research in order to be qualified for tenure,
but we don’t have the equipment they
need,” Robertson said. “We have the type
of professors we want, and we need to support
their research... Right now, we can’t.”
A new science center is the top construction
priority in the 2010 – 2015 Strategic
Plan. The University is committed
to raising $4 million to construct and furnish
a building adjacent to the Samuel C.
Dobbs Science Building. “We are looking
for donors for this much-needed facility,”
said JoEllen Wilson ’61, vice president for
institutional advancement and external affairs.
“The growth of this program, and the
success of the graduates are exciting, and we
want to put the blocks in place to continue
its success.” — MSW
Living History
Elree Bridges Worley ’48
Writes About Her Childhood
During the Depression
Reinhardt alumna Elree Worley’s tales from
her childhood during the Depression, “We
Made It” and “Rounding the Corners,” have
been compiled into one volume and re-released
by Yawn’s Publishing in Canton, Ga.
The first book, “We Made It,” was
published in the early 1990s and contains
more than 40 stories from her youth. She
wrote the second book a few years later after
readers asked for more tales.
“People said, ‘You didn’t write anything
about so and so’ and ‘You didn’t mention
so and so,’” she said.
Worley, now 86, would recount her
childhood stories to her granddaughter,
which eventually led to her decision to
write the episodes down.
“I could write better than I could
talk,” she said, adding she has known she
could be a writer since attending Reinhardt
for two years in the late 1940s. A
teacher there would read her work aloud to
the class, she said.
(Right) Worley demonstrates
the string games she and her
sister played while growing
up in the Depression.
(Top left) Worley points to
her childhood photo.
(Bottom left) Worley plays
jack stones.
Photos by Samantha
Wilson, Cherokee Tribune.
Read more: Cherokee
Tribune - Rewriting
History
“If she liked it, maybe I could hatch up
some stories,” she said.
The book’s stories are about the “trials
and tribulations” of everyday life during
that era.
Worley was one of 12 children. Her father
owned a country store, and the family
raised cotton in a tiny community called
Enterprise.
Stories include “Saving the Chewing
Gum,” where she recalls the luxury of
chewing gum and how children would take
gum out of their mouths only for meals.
Gum would stay in a child’s mouth unless
it dropped out somehow and got “too
much dirt to be cleaned off.”
She also writes about milking cows,
going to square dances and homespun
fun and games. “Our parents couldn’t afford
to buy us toys,” she said. “Children
created their own games, such as collecting
rocks from the yard to play jack stones,
using string to form different shapes with
our hands and spinning a button on a piece
of thread.”
“We would play it for hours,” said Worley.
“Mother would get us to play it because
it was quiet.”
During the depression, she explained
that children were not aware of the economic
conditions. “Everyone was just
alike. Everybody had the same nothing. We
made it just as good as anybody else.”
Worley, who is widowed, has three
children and two grandchildren, and she
is excited to see the stories reprinted so
more people in the community can share
in them.
“It is history,” she said. “True, everyday,
living history.” –article by Ashley Fuller
’01 for the Feb. 26, 2010, issue of The
Cherokee Tribune
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