Today's EAAvesdropping post is canceled on account of snow.

Nicolai Lundy 09C is one of the newest additions to the Emory College Office of Admission. A native of Denver, Lundy moved to Atlanta in 2005 to attend Emory. As a student, Lundy was a member of the Student Alumni Association (SAA), co-founder of Greeks Go Green, and co-captain of the men's track & field team. He served as president of Alpha Tau Omega, and was also a tour guide for the college.

Upon graduating from Emory, Lundy received the University’s highest student honor – the Marion Luther Brittain Award – and began working as an admission counselor at the Emory College Office of Admission.

He recently spoke with the Emory Alumni Association's (EAA) Drew Dotson, coordinator of regional programs and here's what he had to say.

DD: How did you learn about Emory?
NL: Being from Colorado – a state with a handful of Emory freshmen every year – I’ve asked myself the same thing. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was a diligent college researcher. I made spreadsheet comparisons of all my schools; I read all of the college books out there; I sought suggestions from people I respected. I even liked reading all of those pamphlets and shiny pieces of paper that you get in the mail. Looking back, it’s a good thing that I was so proactive because an Emory rep never came to my high school and I didn’t know anyone that had gone to Emory. As I brutally whittled my list down to a quasi-reasonable number of applications (seven), I made sure that Emory was never removed.

DD:What made you choose Emory?
NL: April 2005 came around and I had received my Emory admission letter, among others, but I had never been to visit campus. I knew that I couldn’t make a decision without seeing the buildings and meeting the people. Complicating matters, my AP English teacher was ruthless. He wouldn’t excuse an absence so close to the AP exam. With track meets on the weekends, I was left with only one possible day – the Senior Class Ditch Day. I missed my tour and information session, so I approached students on my own. There was such amazing diversity! The students and staff were all so hospitable and intriguing. I remember sitting on the quad on one of the white benches when I made my decision. It felt right. All the stats were there, like the small class size, but it was also a place where I felt comfortable, which wasn’t easy for a high school student on a college campus.

DD: What did you enjoy most about your experience here?
NL: I would get this question a lot as a tour guide. My answer changed over the years, but as I saw more and more semesters whiz by, I formed closer and more meaningful bonds with the people who live and work and study here. I met people who were unlike anyone I knew at home. They opened my eyes in a way that a textbook can’t. As early as the first month of school, I went to a celebratory dinner at the end of Ramadan. Reading about the Muslim faith is one thing, but seeing people practice it and tasting a little bit of it yourself does so much more to help you appreciate the similarities and the differences. The people here, and the things you stand to learn from them, have been what I love about Emory.

DD: Why did you choose to work in the Office of Admission?
NL: It was 2009. I was a philosophy major. I had a harder time landing a job than finding Waldo. When the admission office wanted to hire me, I wasn’t about to say no! Being an admission counselor offered a chance to continue something that I loved in college. At the end of every tour I gave, no matter how stressed out I had been beforehand, I felt this rush, this high. It felt better than winning one of my races. Having a meaningful role in the life of a young adult (in this case making college decisions) does that to you, I think. For the previous two years, I had seen some of my older friends go on to take jobs that they thought they would love, but it didn’t really work out for them. Luckily my experience was different. It started out as a one-year gig, but it’s hard for me to leave when I’m having so much fun. I want to sign up for another year.

Happy winter everyone! We know it's snowing pretty hard right now up the East Coast from Washington to New England, and we want you to know the Emory campus understands. Our photo of the day isn't from today (although it's darn cold today--for Atlanta--and we had reports of flurries this morning around the metro area ... EAAvesdropping was asleep at the time and unfortunately can't confirm them), but we do know how you feel. It snows here every once in a while.

Thanks for the image Emory University Facebook page!

On Saturday, January 23, a small, but dedicated group of 11 Emory alumni in Atlanta gathered at the Goizueta Business School in hopes of bringing change to the world. Granted, it may have been only a tiny change. But it was change nonetheless.

Community service has long been a part of Emory's, and the Emory Alumni Association's, legacy. And it is this legacy and the joy of helping others that brought this group together to support the newly developed Emory Alumni Community Service Group (EACS) for the organization's debut project: EATlanta, which stands for Emory Alumni Together Lending Atlanta Nutrition Through Assistance.

The mission of the EACS is to engage Emory alumni in serving their community through group events. EATlanta, EACS's first project, has one simple goal: provide personalized meals to those in need while simultaneously creating a stronger sense of community among local Emory alumni.

With more than 320,000 households in Georgia currently receiving food stamps, according to a U.S. Census Bureau study, there is a palpable need to feed and support the less fortunate in our state. EACS recognizes that even the smallest contributions can have a lasting impact on a community. This is why we developed EATlanta.

Through partnerships with Kroger and Whole Foods, EATlanta’s first project provided 250 needy people with meals made by Emory alumni. Each lunch was packed with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, along with a cookie, drink, napkin... and a whole lot of love. Volunteers gathered in the commons area on the first floor of Goizueta at 10:00 a.m., and worked hard preparing the lunches until about 1:00 p.m.

The alumni volunteers then transported the bagged lunches over to My Sister’s House, a nonprofit organization that provides resources to victims of domestic violence and their children. My Sister's House is long-term residential program associated with the Atlanta Union Mission, a Christian Ministry that seeks to aid any person in crisis through programs of rescue and recovery. My Sister’s House can accommodate between 200-300 residents at a time, a perfect number for EATlanta’s first contribution project.

After this successful event, EACS plans to make EATlanta a recurring project. We would like to encourage all alumni interested in volunteering for the next EATlanta program to join. Next time, we hope to prepare far more meals for the Atlanta Union Mission.

For information or updates, please email eacsvolunteers@gmail.com and we will provide you with details for our upcoming projects.

You can also join our Facebook group, "Emory Alumni Community Service (EACS),” to stay current on all the organization's latest efforts.

-- Blake Covington 07B, Emory Alumni Community Service Group

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

every leg you break ... every leaf you rake ... I'll be watching you.

Visit the EAA's Facebook fan page for a scenes from Monday night's Founders Dinner at Cox Hall. Yay! Founders Week!