From Dave Johnson of our biology faculty (who served with his wife, until two years ago, as a long-term missionary to Japan):

Nothing gives me greater joy than to watch a student who is simply going through the motions of taking classes and earning a degree become passionately committed to a field of study. Over the past year I’ve watched one of my students, Jessica Van Ausdall, make that progression. From her first course in Genetics to a later course, Experimental Genetics, she became genuinely interested in the expanding field of genetic research. She approached me in the spring about doing a research project and received a summer stipend from the Samford Undergraduate Research Program that has allowed her to collect specimens from Shades Creek and investigate the mechanism of "killer paramecium." Through her independent research project, she has made the critical move from learning about science to thinking like a scientist. This fall she will enter the Environmental Management graduate program at Samford, and she eventually hopes to pursue a doctorate in genetics/molecular biology. She has definitely found her calling.

The world is better because of Samford's commitment to learning and responsible freedom of inquiry.