Radford University has been named a College of Distinction for 2022-2023 for its commitment to empowering students’ success through engagement, innovation and support as they follow their educational paths. Radford’s academic programs in business, education and nursing were also singled out for individual recognition, along with student support services for career development and military support.

This week in Highlanders in the News: Economics professor Jennifer Elias, Ph.D., talks with WFXR News about inflation and “shrinkflation”; the Radford Fishing Team casts its lines into Smith Mountain Lake and reels in a trophy; and the Virginia Production Alliance gives a hat-tip to Jayma Mays ’00, star of Disney’s upcoming fairy tale spoof “Disenchanted.” 

Radford University’s Board of Visitors Executive Committee approved tuition and fee rates for the 2022-2023 academic year for main campus and Radford University Carilion (RUC) at a special meeting on June 13, 2022.

This week in Highlanders in the News: Radford export Tamara Schuster, M.A. ’95, talks about her efforts to preserve her adopted hometown; photographer Bill Ratcliffe ’06, MFA ’09, takes out the trash in a new exhibit; and several RU graduates rise in the ranks of Roanoke County schools. 

The Radford University School of Nursing has partnered with Universal Health Corp. to provide clinical placements and hours for graduate students enrolled in the Family Nurse Practitioner programs (M.S.N. and D.N.P.). The collaboration will provide opportunities for Family Nurse Practitioner students to obtain clinical experience at Universal Health locations across Virginia.

Radford University Professor of History Richard Straw, Ph.D., will appear on the With Good Reason radio program this week to share his research into hitchhikers who thumbed their way across the U.S. in the 1960s and ’70s. Straw is writing a book about the topic.

As a dendrochronologist, Associate Professor of Geospatial Science Stockton Maxwell focuses much of his research on vegetation dynamics and fire disturbance history using tree-ring analysis. He’s cored trees for research all across the United States, from Virginia to Maine to California, and exotic locations around the world, helping with efforts in Peru, Brazil and Zambia. Maxwell is a teacher, too, willing to talk with anyone, of any age or stature, about the science that captured his imagination nearly 20 years ago. 

Excitement is building over the first images NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will send back to Earth this summer, and the Radford University Planetarium is giving astronomy and science enthusiasts of all ages a chance to learn about the telescope – plus a whole lot more. The planetarium is joining hundreds of sites across the United States on June 10-11, 2022, to celebrate test images released from the telescope, which NASA launched in 2021 as its next great science observatory.

This week in Highlanders in the News: Science students Kaleb Martin and Sam Williams have written about the ways in which teaching can be educational, and geography professor Grigory Ioffe, Ph.D., evaluates how the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine affects neighboring Belarus.