Transylvania is firmly committed to the concept of liberal education. For an education to be of lifelong value, a student must acquire mastery of basic skills, have a broad exposure to and appreciation for the wide varieties of knowledge and expression, and pursue some discipline in depth.
Basic skills are emphasized in First Engagements and First-Year Seminar programs and in many of the introductory courses of the various programs. Broad exposure is provided by distribution, or general education, requirements. Major patterns offer students a wide choice of in-depth study. Off-campus study, travel-study, and internship programs add further options. A low student-faculty ratio and an advising and counseling program provide students with personal attention and guidance so that each may benefit fully from the opportunities available. Many academic support services, facilities, and organizations extend education beyond the classroom into the lives of students.
Academic Advising
The Academic Advising Program is under the general supervision of the dean of the university and is coordinated through the Office of the Registrar by the associate dean of the university. Upon admission, each student is assigned a faculty mentor/advisor. After completion of registration during winter term of the student’s first year, students may choose an advisor in their major or area of interest or another advisor with whom they had a class in their first year.
The Center for Academic and Professional Enrichment
Located on the first floor of Old Morrison, the Center offers resources to enrich students’ experiences in preparation for the many diverse roles of the 21st century. The Center is the home for the 100 Doors Mentor Program, Career Development, Global and Intercultural Engagement (previously known as Study Abroad), prestigious student scholarships/awards cultivation (such as Fulbright awards), student employment and academic internships. Staff will be available to assist faculty with graduate and professional school preparation of students and help faculty with service learning projects.
100 Doors to Success Mentor Program
100 Doors to Success pairs students with alumni and friends of the university. Imagine being guided by seasoned professionals who have successfully navigated the workforce and understand the liberal arts advantage.
Career Development
Career Development engages current and former students by helping them seamlessly translate their liberal arts experience into a fulfilling vocation. By educating our students, we endeavor to move them toward high levels of personal responsibility and self-efficacy that can sustain them throughout their professional lives. Get help with cover letters, resumes, shadowships and internships.
Global and Intercultural Engagement (Study Abroad) and Other Off-Campus Programs
International study opportunities in various settings and for varying lengths of time are available to Transylvania students.
Semester study abroad. Students must complete a formal application process, coordinated by the global and intercultural engagement office, in consultation with the academic dean’s office, the registrar and the faculty in order to study off campus and to transfer academic credit from foreign universities or programs sponsored by U.S. universities or affiliated programs. Approval for course credit must be granted by the registrar and academic program directors. Because University policy requires that 8 of the last 9 courses be taken in residence, students who want to study off campus during senior year must petition and receive approval from the Committee on Admissions and Academic Standards.
Student fees for matriculation in an approved semester study abroad program will be the same as Transylvania’s tuition and general fee. Charging home school tuition and fees makes it possible for financial aid and a portion of institutional aid to be portable. Moreover, students who study abroad receive academic credit towards their Transylvania degree and continue to receive assistance and support from the study abroad office, registrar, financial aid office, accounting office, library, faculty members and advisers, counseling services and information technology services. Students who have Faculty/Staff, Tuition Exchange and Sodexo employee benefits will not be charged home school tuition and fees, but rather will pay study abroad program fees directly to their study abroad program.
Transylvania will pay an approved study abroad program a maximum of $12,000 of a student’s program fee. Students are responsible to pay their study abroad program for the balance of fees if the cost of their study abroad program exceeds the maximum amount allowed. Once approved to study abroad for a semester, a student may use 50% of their Transylvania aid, plus all federal and state aid, loans and eligible outside scholarships for that semester’s bill.
Students will pay room and board fees directly to their off-campus program. In addition, students are responsible for paying enrollment and housing deposits, if required by the program, and for other out-of-pocket expenses such as for passport and visa fees, travel to consulates, international airfare, local transportation, meals, independent travel and personal expenses.
May term travel courses. Transylvania faculty members regularly teach May term courses that include international travel. Offerings vary each year; recent courses have been taught in Belize, Ecuador, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Summer study abroad. Many academic programs are available in the summer through Transylvania’s membership in the Kentucky Institute for International Studies, and several scholarships are available for sophomores and juniors for summer study abroad. Transylvania may nominate a junior student each year to the Kentucky branch of the English-Speaking Union, which offers competitive scholarships for rising seniors to participate in summer study programs at either Cambridge or Oxford universities or the University of Edinburgh.
Domestic Off-Campus Opportunities. Transylvania students may participate in internships for academic credit in the nation’s capital through The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars. Participatory experiences are offered in foreign embassies, broadcast and print journalism, executive branch/public administration, the Congress, foreign policy and international studies, business/international trade and law and legal studies. Requirements and credit are determined by appropriate academic program faculty.
Internship and sponsored learning opportunities are available through a variety of university learning/work options. (See Sponsored Learning: Internships in the Curriculum section of the Catalog.)
Several specific types of sponsored learning opportunities are offered:
Kentucky Legislative Internships. Developed in cooperation with the Kentucky state government, these provide an opportunity for qualified students to become acquainted with the legislative process of the state government by working with legislators and legislative committees during sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly. Students also take a series of courses associated with the legislative internship.
Congressional District Office Internships. Developed in cooperation with the Sixth Congressional District Office, these internships permit qualified students to gain experience in and become acquainted with the operation and activities of a district congressional office for several months.
Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC)
Under an inter-institutional arrangement with the University of Kentucky, Transylvania offers qualified students an opportunity to participate in Air Force and Army ROTC courses. The courses are offered on the University of Kentucky campus, and students are responsible for their own transportation.
Students receiving ROTC scholarships must enroll for aerospace studies (Air Force) courses or military science (Army) courses at the University of Kentucky. In addition to the ROTC scholarships, Transylvania provides scholarships and grant assistance to cover the costs of room and board for all three- and four-year recipients. For more information, visit the Air Force and Army ROTC website at www.uky.edu.
Air Force Studies
1111 Aerospace Studies I ¼ unit (concurrent with AFS 1120)
1120 Leadership Laboratory ¼ unit (concurrent with AFS 1111)
1131 Aerospace Studies I .¼ unit (concurrent with AFS 1140)
1140 Leadership Laboratory ¼ unit (concurrent with AFS 1131)
2111 Aerospace Studies II ¼ unit (concurrent with AFS 2120)
2120 Leadership Laboratory ¼ unit (concurrent with AFS 2111)
2131 Aerospace Studies II ¼ unit (concurrent with AFS 2140)
2140 Leadership Laboratory ¼ unit (concurrent with AFS 2131)
3114 Aerospace Studies III ¼ unit (concurrent with AFS 3120)
3120 Leadership Laboratory ¼ unit (concurrent with AFS 3114)
3133 Aerospace Studies III ¾ unit (concurrent with AFS 3140)
3140 Leadership Laboratory ¼ unit (concurrent with AFS 3134)
4113 Aerospace Studies IV ¾ unit (concurrent with AFS 4120)
4120 Leadership Laboratory ¼ unit (concurrent with AFS 4114)
4133 Aerospace Studies IV ¾ unit (concurrent with AFS 4140)
4140 Leadership Laboratory ¼ unit (concurrent with AFS 4134)
The seminars and laboratories are CR/NC courses that must accompany the appropriate aerospace studies courses as indicated.
American Military Studies
1101 Introduction to the Army ½ unit (concurrent with AMS 2501 recommended)
1102 Introduction to Leadership ½ unit (concurrent with AMS 2501 recommended)
2211 Advanced Leadership I ½ unit (concurrent with AMS 2501 required)
2212 Advanced Leadership II ½ unit (concurrent with AMS 2501 required)
2501 Military Science Laboratory ¼ unit
3014 Leadership and Management I ¾ unit (concurrent with AMS 3501 required)
3024 Advanced Tactics ¾ unit (concurrent with AMS 3501 required)
3204 American Military History ¾ unit
3414 Leadership and Management II ¾ unit (concurrent with AMS 3501 required)
3424 Command Management ¾ unit (concurrent with AMS 3501 required)
3501 Advanced Military Science Laboratory ¼ unit
3951 Independent Study in Leadership ¼ unit
Nontraditional Enrollment
Part-time, non-degree-seeking students, designated as special students, may register for regular courses through the registrar’s office. Registration is subject to the following restrictions:
- All prospective students must affirm their completion of high school or the GED or be approved by the dean of the university.
- An individual denied admission as a degree-seeking student is not eligible to register as a special student.
- After completing three courses, a person must have a cumulative grade point average of 2.0 or higher to continue as a special student.
- No more than six full-unit courses taken as a special student may be applied to degree requirements.
- Exemptions from any of the above restrictions may be granted by the dean of the university.
For detailed information, contact the Office of the Registrar, (859) 233-8116.
Academic Support Facilities and Organizations
Campus computing facilities exist for three distinct areas of campus activity:
- Administration—a student information system for admissions, the registrar, student life, accounting, alumni and development and TNet for students
- Library—a cloud-based system for the library catalog
- Academics—clusters of Intel-based servers running VMware software that host virtualized Windows and Linux servers that provide most hosted campus computing needs.
Transylvania is a Google Apps for Education client. Each student receives a university Google account, which provides with cloud storage (Google Drive), email (Gmail), collaborative productivity apps (Docs, Sheets, Presentation) and more. Access to the network is provided by PCs in student labs, through wired and wireless connections in residence hall rooms and via portal connections for commuting and off-campus students.
Computing facilities are available in numerous campus locations, including the library, Brown Science Center and Cowgill Center. Wireless access is available for use with appropriate devices in all buildings and many other locations on campus, including several common and outdoor areas. Computers are available to students in lab settings, most of which run Windows 10 and Microsoft Office. Printers are available in the library, Campus Center, Beck Center and the residence halls, and a web-based print facility allows students to submit print jobs from their personal computers. The library has a color copier available for student use, a specialty graphics lab running Linux is available for computer science students, and a digital arts technology lab is accessible to students in certain fine arts courses. From off campus, students have direct web access to email, TNet and Moodle, and they can connect to Transylvania’s campus-only web pages via a secure VPN connection. The information technology office offers help desk support from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Self-service, web-based assistance also is available.
Software available to users in the computer labs includes programming languages (C/C++, Java, Prolog, LISP, Perl and BASIC), math (Matlab), statistical packages (SPSS) and productivity packages (Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, Access, Publisher and PowerPoint), as well as various other software packages.
As the center of academic research on campus, the J. Douglas Gay Jr./Frances Carrick Thomas Library provides a place for students to gather to engage in intellectual discourse with their peers and to engage in the ongoing intellectual discussion in the scholarship of their fields. The library offers students, faculty and staff a broad range of research materials. The collection consists of online resources, books, e-books, periodicals, films and music designed to support current academic programs and courses. The online resources are available anywhere on or off campus 24 hours a day and provide access to the full text of more than 15,000 journals, 185,000 e-books, hundreds of high-end encyclopedias and other resources.
The library offers many outstanding services to users. Librarians enjoy helping students, faculty and staff with their research, providing personalized and professional guidance. They teach Transylvania students to identify, find, evaluate and use information from a plethora of sources available, helping them to be first-class researchers. Librarians also conduct individual research consultations with students, helping them to succeed in their courses. Librarians begin teaching students to be information literate in the First-Year Seminar and continue to work with upper-class students to further develop and translate those skills to their advanced studies. Librarians work to ensure that graduates are prepared to do the types of research they will encounter when they leave, either in graduate school or in the workplace.
The Academic Center for Excellence in the lower level of the library houses the Writing Center, Learning Skills Program and centralized tutoring services. It provides space for students to have intellectual discussions with each other or with their tutors, as well as research support from the library. It provides two seminar rooms, each with seating for 12 people, in which workshops, meetings and student research and discussions are held. These rooms have video screens that allow students to share online work. The library also provides space and equipment for students to video themselves doing presentations, which allows them to observe and critique themselves and obtain critiques from others. To facilitate collaborative learning and creative group work, and to support tutors working with students, the ACE has flexible furniture that moves based upon the need of the users, plenty of movable whiteboards and large monitors that multiple students can plug their devices into to share what they are seeing, discussing and creating.
In addition, the library aids students, faculty and international researchers with the university’s magnificent historic and rare collections. Special Collections and Archives houses the Clara S. Peck Collection, the Old Medical Library (used by Transylvania medical students from 1799-1859), the university archives and the J. Winston Coleman Jr. Kentuckiana Collection, among others. Transylvania students of today are able to use the oldest academic collection in Kentucky and one of the oldest in the South.
The library’s Educational Resources Center houses curriculum materials for grades K-12, including a wide variety of activity and idea books, thematic unit guides and children’s and young adult literature, as well as DVDs, flash cards, educational games and more. The primary purpose of the collection is to support the education program as it prepares early childhood, elementary and secondary school teachers.
More than a “fix-it shop” for grammar and usage, the Writing Center is a hub of writing activity. The center is committed to helping students in all majors and disciplines develop lifelong writing habits. Its professional teaching staff and trained peer tutors offer one-on-one tutoring and small group conferencing. A network computer lab, library of writing reference tools and comfortable group meeting spaces are available to students, faculty and staff during regular office hours on a drop-in or appointment basis.
The Cowgill Center for Business, Economics and Education includes a general-purpose computer/teaching lab and a specialized classroom for training education majors.
The L.A. Brown Science Center provides laboratories equipped for instruction in biology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics and physics. Chemistry students can study on ultraviolet and atomic absorption spectrometers and a nuclear magnetic resonance machine; biology students have access to use current molecular genetic tools as well as imaging and analysis microscopy systems, and individual laboratory facilities are available for research. The building also offers computing facilities, including a specially equipped lab with workstations for computer science students. Several of the laboratories are newly renovated.
The Behavioral Sciences Laboratory, located in Hazelrigg Hall, provides facilities for research in psychology and sociology. It contains several testing rooms, including an observation room with a one-way mirror and audio recording equipment.
The Lucille C. Little Theater provides a highly flexible performance space, seating 100-150 spectators. Several actor-audience spatial relationships are possible, including proscenium, thrust, arena and environmental staging. The dressing rooms and green room are both functional and pleasant, creating an inviting atmosphere for innovative work. The lighting instruments can be focused quickly and safely on the wire rope grid, and the fully computerized light and sound boards offer a variety of technical options. Onsite storage and scene shop facilities enhance production potential.
The Mitchell Fine Arts Center houses Haggin Auditorium, Carrick Theater, Morlan Gallery, scenery and costume shops, music practice rooms, Coleman Hall and the Digital Arts Technology Lab. Coleman Hall provides space for recitals, rehearsals and classes in stage movement, theater and music.
The Digital Arts Technology Lab (Dart Lab) is a digital production facility for digital art, music, video and multimedia recording, editing and production. The lab is an exciting and collaborative interdisciplinary space for students to complete course work and independent projects.
The Physiology Lab, located in the Beck Center, is the site of laboratory activities for courses in anatomy and physiology, exercise physiology and biomechanics, as well as faculty and student research. It is equipped with BIOPAC physiological recording systems, a treadmill and electronically braked bicycle for exercise studies, a metabolic cart to measure oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production during exercise and a bioelectric impedance analyzer to estimate body composition. Using this state-of-the-art equipment, students gain hands-on experience while applying principles and concepts learned in the classroom.
Academic Honoraries
The Holleian Society was established in 1960 for the encouragement and recognition of superior achievement in liberal arts studies. Students are selected by the faculty on the basis of academic achievement. The society is named for Horace Holley, president of Transylvania from 1818-27. Transylvania also has chapters of Phi Alpha Theta, (national history honorary) Alpha Lambda Delta (first-year student honorary), Alpha Kappa Delta (sociology), Psi Chi (psychology), Omicron Delta Epsilon (economics), Sigma Pi Sigma (physics), Sigma Tau Delta (English), Sigma Delta Pi (Spanish), Pi Delta Phi (French), Pi Sigma Alpha (political science), Beta Beta Beta (biology), and Phi Alpha Delta (prelaw). Campus societies include the Science Honorary, Sodalitas (classics), and Sophia, the Transylvania University Philosophical Society.
Campus Media
In addition to serving as a means of student expression, the campus media offer opportunities for instruction and learning. The media are The Rambler, the student newspaper, and The Transylvanian, the literary and visual arts magazine.
Speech and Debate
The Transylvania Debate Team is active in parliamentary debate, attending several tournaments each term. Transylvania is a charter member of the National Educational Debate Association. The debate program helps students develop skills in analytical thinking, research, argumentation, and public speaking. Some of these same skills, as well as those in writing and interpretation, are developed by members of the Transylvania Speech Team, which is active in the National Forensics Association and competes in a number of individual events tournaments throughout the year. The speech and debate teams are both affiliated with Pi Kappa Delta, a national forensics honorary. Involvement in speech and debate is open to all students and does not require previous experience.
Performing Arts Organizations
Transylvania University Theater offers a variety of theatrical experiences to the campus community. Each year, two to three major productions are staged in the theaters of Mitchell Fine Arts Center or Little Theater. Recent productions have included Dying City, She Kills Monsters, Anon(ymous), Beware Wolf…and Other Nightmares, Much ado About Nothing and Marie Antoinette. Opportunities are available to qualified students to direct, design, technically support, and act in the shows. In addition, two student groups produce plays and musicals each year. Auditions are open to all Transylvania students, and everyone is invited to participate.
The Transylvania Choir is an auditioned choral organization that studies and performs standard choral repertoire from the sixteenth century to the present. The choir presents public performances on and off campus, including an annual tour. This organization is for the experienced singer who is interested in the study and performance of the finest choral literature and wants to achieve a particularly high performance standard.
The Transylvania Singers is a non-auditioned ensemble of mixed voices. Class materials and choral repertoire are geared to create confident and beautiful singing for all voice types.
Pioneer Voices is the newest addition to the ensemble program, with a choral repertoire chosen specifically for men.
The Madrigal Singers, selected from members of the choir, study and perform vocal chamber music from the sixteenth century to the present, including jazz. The Madrigal Singers are well known in the Lexington area for their annual series of madrigal dinners presented in December.
The Transylvania Concert Band is the university’s principal wind and percussion ensemble. It focuses on major works from the concert band literature. Highlights of its activities include guest conductors, guest soloists, and concert tours. It is the parent organization of the Jazz Ensemble, Pep Band, and Percussion Ensemble.
The Jazz Ensemble performs compositions and arrangements for “big band” from all styles and historical periods. Emphasis is placed on the development of individual improvisation and reading and ensemble performance skills.
The Chamber Orchestra performs repertoire for both string and full orchestra.
The Musical Theater Workshop and Opera Workshop provide opportunities in staged musical productions, both fully produced and in workshop settings.
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