J. Pollard Turman 34C 35L 73H, namesake of Emory's highest award for alumni service, believed in supporting leaders. He had a nickname for leaders, too. One that kind of sticks in your mind.

Bell cows.

Now, there aren't many cattle roaming near the Emory campus, although there used to be back in the days before paved roads (and over on Oxford campus, the occasional bovine explorer will find his way into Seney Hall), so it's understandable if the reference flies over your head.

But according to the story, Turman called men and women who were natural leaders "bell cows." The cows were so named because of the bell around their necks. Wherever the bell cow leads, the herd follows. Such as it is with leadership.

And in 2011, the Bell Cow is Walker Ray 62C 65M 68MR.

President Jim Wagner presented Ray with the J. Pollard Turman Alumni Service Award at a banquet and ceremony in the Miller-Ward Alumni House on Thursday, March 24. A pediatrician in Atlanta for more than 35 years, Ray has served in a variety of Emory roles, including a stint in 2006-07 as president of the Emory Alumni Board (EAB), which is where I met him.

I enjoyed working with Ray immensely. He was (and is) approachable, humble, intelligent but not overbearing, sincere, and funny. All great qualities in the leader (and in a doctor, for that matter). He is a leader who you want to follow. And that's probably the best kind. He's someone who will cross a room to say hello to you. And that means a lot.

The Turman award itself was created by the Frabel Glass Art Studio here in Atlanta and as you can see in the photo above, it manages to be be beautiful and whimsical. Not pictured above is the $25,000 check presented to the Turman recipient by the Tull Charitable Foundation. The recipient may direct that grant to any Emory program he chooses.

Ray chose five: the School of Medicine, the Candler School of Theology, Oxford College, the Department of Pediatrics, and the EAB Leadership Scholarship. Lots of people drove home happy.

For more about Ray, read the April 2011 edition of EmoryWire. It'll be out Tuesday, March 29.

-- Eric Rangus, director of communications, EAA

Kelley Adams Lips 02Ox 04C graduated from Oxford College, then Emory College, and now she works in the admission office at Oxford helping her alma mater recruit the next generation of Emory alumni ... students who will follow in her footsteps.

EAA Communications Coordinator Drew Dotson caught up with her and they discussed Lips' job, what makes Emory special and how she got to live in an pro-Emory household.

Click here to learn more about the Alumni Admission Network (AAN).

DD: You’re an assistant dean of admission at Oxford. What are your primary responsibilities?

KAL: I began working at Oxford in 2004 upon graduating from Emory. I knew I wanted to pursue graduate school, but was not sure in what area. I interviewed for the position at Oxford and had originally planned to stay for two years before pursuing graduate school full-time. After my two years as an admission adviser passed, I was not ready to leave and, instead, began graduate school part-time. Seven years from when I began, I am still here and love my job more now than ever! Currently my primary responsibilities in the office are coordinating travel for recruitment purposes, staff development and new training, overseeing the application review process, and working with our Alumni Admission Network and Parent Recruitment Network.

DD: You graduated from Oxford in 2002. Is Oxford different now from the Oxford you remember?

KAL: The main difference is the new residence hall, East Village; I wish I could have lived there! Another difference is the emphasis on sustainability. East Village has some impressive features to reduce and reuse energy. We also have a community garden here at Oxford and the dining hall receives much of the food from local farmers. I think it is wonderful that students are more aware of the impact we have on our environment. Oxford continues to be a place where students grow and transform. There was always an emphasis on learning experiences outside of the classroom, but that has only increased with programs like the Pierce Institute, which emphasizes community engagement, leadership, and global engagement.

DD: When you continued to Emory College, what were some of the biggest adjustments you had to make?

KAL: When I continued to Emory, I immediately found new ways to be involved and joined the crew team. My biggest adjustment was waking up at 5:00 a.m. every morning for practice! Otherwise my transition was a smooth and positive experience. The experiences were different in many ways, but one wasn’t necessarily better than the other. I am really glad I was able to start my Emory education at Oxford.

DD: What makes the Oxford experience distinctive?
KAL: At the risk of sounding cliché, the community at Oxford isn’t like any other I have experienced. It has a friendly and inviting aura. Oxford was academically challenging, but I always felt supported and that the faculty truly cared about my success. I also liked the feeling of walking across campus and being surrounded by familiar faces.

DD: What is your favorite thing about your job?
KAL: My favorite things about my job are the same characteristics I enjoyed when I was a student. I am very much a part of a community and appreciate that connection I have with others. I work with wonderful people who are truly invested in me as a person, just like the faculty and staff were when I was a student. I also appreciate the opportunities I have to grow professionally and personally here at Oxford. Lastly, the students are a huge factor in my job satisfaction. Often I recruit them at their high schools and then see them all the way to graduation. It is amazing to think that, in a small way, I had a part in their decision to come to Oxford. I still keep in touch with many students who I met my first year here in 2004.

DD: What's been the biggest surprise about your job?

KAL: I met my husband, Erik, through my job. Erik currently works in the Office of Financial Aid at Emory, but up until a few months ago worked in the Admission Office. He came to Oxford for a meeting during my second year and we met for the first time. We didn’t talk again for almost a year, but eventually we began dating and then he proposed in the Chapel here at Oxford. Another big surprise was that we were able to use our hotel points accumulated from traveling for recruitment to stay in Aruba for 12 days for our honeymoon. Needless to say, we have a very pro-Emory household.

Have you ever dreamed of going to the Olympics?

A group of Oxford College Alumni Board (OCAB) members (a few of us are in the picture at left) did just that Saturday night as they volunteered for the 2nd Annual Oxford Olympics. The Oxford Olympics, which is the brain child of OCAB member Rhiannon Hubert 05Ox 07C, is a new Oxford Orientation tradition that brings together all incoming freshmen in a battle of residence halls to win the coveted title of best hall.

The students showed their skill in a relay tricycle race, tug-of-war, Dooley, Eagle, Zebra (a version of rock/paper/scissors) and a sing-off of the alma mater and the Emory fight song.

OCAB members and their families gave out water/snacks and staffed the first aid station. Luckily we had no injuries. It was a lot of fun and great exposure for the recruitment of potential legacy students!

-- Jennifer Crabb 98Ox 00C, director, technology and online services, EAA; Oxford College Alumni Board

Signs point to ... a lot of places. The campus at Oxford College is compact, so it's tough to get lost, but if for some reason you get turned around, we have nice signage to point you in the right direction.

Nobody's here! Seney Hall at Oxford College looks nice, though.

Being at the lecture that Andy Urban delivered at Oxford College for Founders Week was a bit of a Janus experience, seeing like that two-headed Roman god into the past while also looking into the future.

Urban’s lecture, Romance and Race in the Jim Crow South: Yun Ch’i-ho and the Personal Politics of Christian Reform, centered on Yun Ch’i-Ho 1893Ox, a Korean national who was Emory’s first international student and alumnus. Urban, who is a postdoctoral research fellow with Emory’s Transforming Community Project, read Yun’s diary, which he kept while he was at Emory on what is now the Oxford campus, as well as other archival material during his research.

Yun was the first Asian most students and local residents had ever encountered, and his experience in an era of Jim Crow laws was a complicated mixture of acceptance and discrimination. Contrasting with those realities were the many international students in the audience, representing Emory’s rich diversity in the 21st century, and capping it all was the presence of Hena Chun 08Ox 10C (above, left, with Urban), an Emory senior and New Jersey native who is Yun’s great-great granddaughter.

Chun said that Emory was the only university in the South that she considered, partly of course because of the connection to her forebear, but also because she knew it had such a diverse student population. It’s astounding to consider how far we’ve come, but exciting to consider the breadth of achievement that Emory’s wide embrace continues to foster.

Urban’s lecture will be available for viewing/listening shortly through iTunes U.

-- Cathy Wooten, director of communications, Oxford College

Emory's Oxford College campus isn't all that large, but sometimes it's nice to have one's own transportation. You can find this bicycle rack, although not necessarily these exact bicycles, outside of Stone Hall.

After watching last night’s episode of The Vampire Diaries, I’m not necessarily convinced that there were ever real vampires and witches on Oxford College’s campus. BUT ... there were definitely strange visitors a while back as evidenced by the show’s setting.

The Oxford footage was limited to the inside second story of the library but definitely recognizable. From the spiral staircase to the “Quiet Zone” sign it was pure Oxford.

The characters spent the majority of last night’s episode at a little bar by the railroad tracks on Emory St. in Covington, GA. The bar doubles as a country buffet during the day, but in the show it was a happening little pub complete with vampires and at least one witch--the bartender.

I’ve actually been to that bar once (for the buffet) and it was definitely the same place. I may go back now just to get re-acquainted, not necessarily for the food, and sit where Damon sat.

Hopefully this time life will not imitate art, Covington doesn’t need back-alley beat downs and a witch-murdering vampire ... although she did double-cross Damon. One may think twice before walking across the Oxford quad at night now.

Not being a regular watcher of the show I will say it kept my attention and was fun to see Oxford College and Covington, GA as the backdrop. Here’s to hoping they return ... peacefully. Maybe next time they can capture some of the beauty that is the Oxford College campus.

-- Kevin Smyrl, associate dean, development and alumni relations, Oxford College

** photo above by Guy D'Alema ... downloaded from the Vampire Diaries Facebook page.

The Olympic Spirit is alive at Oxford College.

Last week saw the arrival of a new class of students at Oxford, all of whom surely felt they were the best of the best. The Oxford Olympics, which helped welcome them to campus, determined once and for all who among those students was right.

A total of 23 teams, broken down by residence hall floor and wing, spent part of their first weekend as Emory students battling in good-natured competitions like a water balloon toss, relay races, an obstacle course, tug-of-war and even a trivia challenge. Some, like the students of first floor Dowman and first floor Stone, pictured above, drew their inspiration, if not their athletic prowess, from impressive places.

Once all the points were added up, the winner was third floor, Beta Hall, wing 2. (Beta Hall is part of Oxford's new East Village complex.)

Following the competition, students adjourned to Williams Hall (decorated by banners and flags designed by each team) for the medal ceremony. A few teams even earned some extra points for their floor chants. The Olympics closed with a singing of the alma mater. No more points were tallied.

The 2009 edition of the Oxford Olympics renewed a tradition that dates back to the early 20th century, when ROTC was part of the campus experience. Back then, student "companies" competed in a variety of sports to win the title of best team.

After World War II, Oxford went co-ed and a new tradition emerged, "Field Day," which pitted the first- and second-year classes against each other. The team with the most points at the end of the day won the prize. The current Oxford Olympics includes many of the features of the company competition and of Field Day.

The full award list is below.

First Place: Beta Hall, third floor, wing 2
Second Place: Haygood Hall, bottom north and bottom south
Third Place: Bonnell Hall, top floor
Best Team Spirit: Alpha Hall, second floor, wing 2
Best Team Unity: Bonnell Hall, top floor
Best Banner: Stone Hall, bottom and second floor
MVPs: Landon Jones 11Ox, Alpha Hall, first floor; Samer Abraham 11Ox, East Hall

-- Eric Rangus, director of communications, EAA

Seney Hall opened on the Oxford campus in 1881, and its beauty didn't diminish when Emory College moved to Atlanta in 1915. It remains a center of academic life at Oxford College, and Seney's Hall's walls (which do talk if you listen closely) can weave a web of fascinating stories. From the origins of its remarkable bell to its flirtation with superstardom in the 1970s and 80s (you can skip to the 55 second mark if you want, but the video is more entertaining in its entirety) to more recent visitors of the four-legged kind, Seney Hall has experienced more varied Emory history than perhaps any other campus building.

The legacy of Bond Fleming 33C 36T, Oxford College Dean, Emeritus, was assured long ago. Even in his late 90s, Fleming, who passed away on June 27, remained an active part of the Emory community.

Since his death, that community has mourned his loss and celebrated his life as well as his many contributions to the University he loved.

Fleming (shown at right in 1974; it's tough to see, but on his lapel he is wearing an Emory nametag, click the photo to see it full size) was much-loved across the University, but nowhere more so than at Oxford, where he served as dean from 1966-76.

A July 2 memorial service at Glenn Auditorium gave the Emory community the opportunity to pay its final respects. Since then, the EAA collected several memories from Oxford alumni and administrators.

Joe Moon, Oxford's dean of campus life, wrote the following:

Dean Fleming left a legacy at Oxford that is truly remarkable. When I arrived at Oxford in 1988, Dr. Fleming was in retirement, but he continued to support and advocate for Oxford with the energy and passion as if he were still sitting in the dean's chair. I cannot remember an Oxford event that Bond failed to attend in all these years--often wearing a ragtag Oxford College baseball cap.

During Board of Counselor meetings or meetings with Atlanta campus administrators, I looked forward to the moment in each meeting when Bond would rise slowly and heap praise upon Oxford and admonish all in attendance to support the college's mission.

Bond Fleming was a southern gentleman of the highest order: he was courtly, intelligent, loyal, compassionate, and tenacious in the support of his friends, his college, and his church. He was one of a kind and will be deeply missed.

Oxford College Alumni Board member Warren Brook 70Ox 72B, a close friend of Fleming's, told us he had spoken with the former dean on June 18, his 99th birthday. Brook said his still-spry friend asked about Oxford's incoming first-year students and was already making plans for the upcoming year.

I spoke with my friend Tammy Camfield 89Ox 91C, director of alumni relations at Oxford, the other day about Fleming, and she also recalled the last time they spoke--Thursday, June 17. He was excited about his family coming over to celebrate his birthday and about officiating at his grandson's wedding in Athens on the 19th.

"He was always so complimentary of everyone at Oxford," she said. "And he always ended conversations by saying, 'God bless you.' It was the sweetest thing."

A memorial service at Oxford is being planned. Until then, please feel free to leave a memory of your own below.

-- Eric Rangus, director of communications, EAA

As a 1998 graduate of Oxford College, attending Oxford’s Commencement activities is always exciting. Each year, I relive my experiences of being an Oxford student, continuee student, and an alumna.

On Wednesday, May 6, I started my 2009 Commencement festivities by attending the Oxford College sophomore pinning ceremony where hundreds of sophomores gathered at the Turner Lake community center in Covington to celebrate completing their coursework to receive their associate’s degrees. The transition is bittersweet and easy to see as laughter and tears filled the air while we all gazed at the photo slideshow that illustrated their two years on the Oxford campus. Oxford's Dean of Campus Life Joe Moon and Oxford Dean and CEO Stephen Bowen gave marching orders to the students to leave a mark on the Emory campus by becoming Wheel editors, SGA presidents, and members of Phi Beta Kappa just as their predecessors had done when they arrived on the main campus in Atlanta.

The very next day, I was able to meet those predecessors at the Oxford Continuee reception on the Atlanta campus, which is hosted by Oxford's Office of Development and Alumni Relations. (See the photo above ... there are other photos on the EAA's Twitter site). The event was well-attended as these students gathered as a group most likely for the first time since their own Sophomore Banquet. They took many pictures, reminisced and exchanged contact information.

Attending the reception brought back many memories of my own reception which I can remember like yesterday (even though it was 11 years ago…Yikes!) My classmates and I sealed our bonds that day and made a pact to always be in each other’s lives which we still are to this day. On Saturday, I was at our beautiful home--the Oxford campus. I assisted with Corpus Cordis Aureum (CCA), where 45 Oxford graduates of the Class of 1959 and one from the Class of 1958 donned golden robes to march in the processional and commemorate their 50 years since graduating from Oxford.

I have participated in many CCA ceremonies, but this one touched me the most. Watching my fellow alumni gather in lines of two and march onto the Quadrangle which is the epicenter of where they undoubtedly grew into adults and accepted the charge to be community leaders, experts in their professional fields and stewards of our institution was inspirational. Of course, it brought tears to my eyes as I thought of my days at Oxford and look forward to the future where my classmates and I will too one day adorn those golden robes to celebrate the lasting impact Oxford has made on our lives.

--Jennifer Crabb 98Ox 00C, director of initiatives and technology, EAA

Greetings! I am Lindsay Topping, manager of the Emory Alumni Board (EAB), which is a group of 38 + members representing all of the different schools and units at Emory. They also come from all over the United States. I plan their quarterly meetings, and last Friday, March 6, we took the group to historic Oxford College, since many of them had never been there before. It was great to see how excited everyone was to spend the day at Oxford and how impressed they were with this community, even during their first moments on campus.

I am a newbie to Oxford, as well. This recent trip was only my fifth trip there. Several of my previous visits were due to the fact that my two brothers —Jason Topping 07Ox 09C and Carson Topping 09Ox – are Oxford alums, and I wanted to get a taste of their experiences there (and make sure they were behaving!).

We could not have asked for a more beautiful day at Oxford. The skies were blue and cloudless. The flowers were starting to bloom with the newly warmer temperatures in Georgia. And the students were pumped to be going on Spring Break beginning later that afternoon.

Four of our EAB members, all Oxford alumni, served as hosts for the day—Jim Bailey 67Ox 69C, Ed Cloaninger 91Ox 03C, Isam Vaid 93Ox 95C 99PH and Art Vinson 66Ox 68C. We took the board on tours of the main campus and of the new sustainability initiatives happening at Oxford, ate in their dining room with Oxford students, staff and council members, spent time in the Student Center hearing and discussing hot topics at Emory and were invited to Dean Stephen Bowen’s home for a reception at the end of the day. We couldn’t have asked for a better day at Oxford and hope to take this board back soon. If you have not visited this campus, it is a must do, plus it’s where Emory all began!

Click here to see a slideshow from the day (photos by Tom Brodnax 65Ox 68C).

Lindsay Topping, manager of the Emory Alumni Board, EAA