Japanese Program News

Elizabeth “Betsy” Jordan-Bell, an advancement professional with more than 15 years of experience in strategic fundraising, donor engagement and partnership development, is joining the Western Carolina University Division of Advancement as director of development for the College of Health and Human Sciences.

Western Carolina University School of Nursing faculty members April Messer and Angie Trombley recently received a $10,000 grant from the Daisy Foundation to conduct a project titled “Nurse-Led Social Connection for Rural Elder Adults.”

Caitlin Torrence, professor in Western Carolina University’s College of Health and Human Sciences, recently received an $840,000 grant to fund a Health Policy Research Consortium over the next two years.

Kyra Turner was left waiting longer than expected to see if her presentation proposal was accepted, to the point where she didn’t think she had gotten it.

This February, Brian Byrd, Western Carolina University’s professor of environmental health sciences and resident “skeeter man,” was awarded the 2026 University of North Carolina System Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching.

There aren’t a lot of Division I arenas in America where the gym is still rattling with the home team up by 51 on a D-III school. Inside the Liston B. Ramsey Regional Activity Center, Drew Hollifield commanded a presence that did just that in October.

The Qualla Boundary is Lisa Lefler’s second home. Over the course of her decades-long career, the Western Carolina University teaching professor has made countless trips to Cherokee, helping the tribe in any way she can through her expertise in health and anthropology.

Stability wasn’t something Ebenezer Gyamfi was used to growing up in Ghana. He bounced between different relatives after he said his mother abandoned him from a young age, starting with his grandma and later filtering through a host of aunts and uncles.

Every year for career day, Rhonda Summers’ high school had students write three jobs they wanted to hear about as a career. Summers only needed to write down one: pre-hospital medicine.

Sarah Matesz’s heart rate rose about as fast as the flood water that submerged her feet. She was frantically moving her belongings to the second floor of her cabin, which was perched on the side of the mountain some 20 minutes away from Burnsville.