STAR POWER: Participants in XU head basketball coach Dannton Jackson's inaugural Basketball Skills Camp take a break from developing their footwork and other fundamentals to pose with camp counselors, which included (front and center) Al-Farouq Aminu of the NBA's New Orleans Pelicans, in the new Convocation Center
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RITES OF SUMMER: (L-R) XU sophomore and camp counselor Elmore Cato guides high school student Eude Lesperance through some hands-on learning challenges in the computation sciences during the Computer Science Department's CS: Exploring Computer Science at Xavier. It's one of many summer enrichment programs currently on campus.

MAJOR UPGRADE: (L-R) XU Interim VP for OTA Melva Williams, XU President Dr. Norman Francis, LONI Executive Director Donnie Vandal, and XU Board of Trustees Chair Michael Rue participate in a ceremonial ribbon-cutting signifying the University's official connection to the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative, a fiber optics network linking the state's research universities to one another and national networks, in addition to doubling bandwidth and significantly ratcheting up internet speeds on campus.

TAKING IN THE SIGHTS: 11 XU students and faculty/staff members - (L-R) Sheldon Maurice, Adina Ewing, Sheridon Trepagnier IV, Jazmine Thompson, Avion Bailey, Leonard Clay, Dr. Lori Crawford, Joseph Hicks, Shu Peng, Ahmeena Anderson, and A'Vanti Glenn - take in the iconic Great Wall near Beijing during a two-week visit to China sponsored by the Confucius Institute. The nine students, who all studied the Mandarin language at XU, received further intensive Chinese language training and were exposed to Chinese culture and history.

ADVANCED TRAINING: Biology professor Dr. Peter Barrett shows students the proper technique for handling C. elegans (a nematode worm), which can be used as a model to study aging. XU students were joined on campus by students from around the country for the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging funded mini-course/workshop, "Frontiers in Aging and Regeneration".

XAVIER BOUND: (on flanks) Xavier reps Typhanie Jasper-Butler and Christy Lagarde welcome pre-freshman Christopher August and mom Melanie Armelin to Xavier during the 2013 Lagniappe Weekend, a two-day event designed to ease the transition of new students into the college environment.