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Nolan Lott was only a toddler when Ron Howard’s film, Apollo 13, hit the theaters.

When he was old enough to watch and understand the Academy Award-winning film about the aborted 1970 lunar mission, he —like many young boys — dreamed of becoming an astronaut.

Energetic. Inventive. Committed. That’s how colleagues and students describe music professor John Spilker.

“Students will come, and they will stay when they have taken inventive, demanding and engaging classes like those taught by John Spilker,� wrote Sandra McBride, assistant professor of English.

New bachelor’s and master’s degrees, a new forward-thinking general education curriculum, a new sport, new facility updates, new faces. We certainly have a lot to look forward to for the new academic year. Here are some highlights:

Bill Motzer has been named the Vice President for Enrollment Management at º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ University.

He will lead the university’s enrollment planning, admissions, financial aid, retention, and marketing and communications efforts.

º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ University junior Matt Schmitt spent part of last summer digging in the dirt.

Now it’s his twin sister’s turn to go digging.

Matt and Rachel Schmitt — biology majors with hopes of becoming doctors someday — were selected for the United Kingdom’s Fulbright Summer Institute.

The end of Kelsey Arends’ semester abroad in Nicaragua last year was really only the beginning.

She was intrigued by the country’s decreasing maternal mortality rate, and she wanted to know more.

The only way to do that was to return to Nicaragua.

º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ University senior Jamie Reed wants to be a high school English teacher. It’s likely her future students will learn a little about the Japanese language and culture too.

º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ University President Fred Ohles joined approximately 100 college presidents on Thursday, January 16 in committing to new and expanded efforts in enrolling and graduating more low-income minority students.

If the Physics Department had a family tree framed on its wall, it would have just four branches.

Three years ago a group of º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ University students traveled to Guatemala where they helped the organization Constru Casa build a house for an impoverished family.

A third º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ University student has won a Fulbright Scholarship.

Tom Schroeder, a senior political science and Spanish major from Lincoln, will teach English and American culture at a university in Turkey.