Inside this issue:

Newsletter

July 2014

From the Copy Editor

Greetings and Salutations my fellow members!

As the summer winds down for my kids, they are wringing every bit of fun out of each and every day. While they are not too excited about the beginning of school, I am looking forward to kids who actually want to go to bed at a more decent hour. For those of you who took the summer off, it is about time for you to start preparing for classes in August and Sep- tember.

Please remember to email the newsletter any news you want to share with the fellow members of the Sa- ber and Scroll. If you have tried some new academic technology or software, please write a brief review of it and let me share it with the rest of the members.Field trips, graduations, new family additions, new jobs, or any other type of news is welcome.

We are gearing up for another election soon! Keep an eye out for emails regarding voting instructions. A special edition of the newsletter will come out in about two weeks with all the candidates information.

Enjoy this edition of the newsletter!

DeAnna StevensB.A. History

From the Copy Editor 1

From the President 2

Member News 3

Tech Reviews 4

Club News 5

The Last Word 7

Class of 2013

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From the PresidentA message from our esteemed PresidentAs I approach the end of my year as your President, I look back and see that it has been quite an eventful year. We have grown to over 950 mem- bers; had several field trips, participated in several projects; and contin- ued to publish a superb journal.

Being able to serve as your President has been a privilege and an experi- ence that I will never forget, and that has given me the opportunity to make friends that I would never have made had I not been elected. The next election of officers is fast approaching, and I would recommend to anyone that they seriously consider running for one of the Society’s elect- ed positions, or agreeing (when asked) to serve on a committee.

We are on track to have another really successful year. There are two ma- jor projects coming up this fall and winter: the Holiday Card mailing (last year we sent over 1600 holiday cards to servicemen and women), and Wreaths Across America. Please get involved – you will not regret it.

One of our major accomplishments for this year was the amending of our Society’s Constitution. Thanks to all who took the time to study the chang- es and then cast their vote. The changes that were made will, I believe, help the Saber and Scroll become an even better organization.

Finally – thanks to all of those who served with me this year. I could not have done my job had it not been for your unselfish devotion to the Socie- ty.

Lew TaylorPresident, The Saber and Scroll

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Member NewsAll the information you could ever want about our membersAndrew Demko is responsible for implementing an educational curricu- lum at the school where he is a teacher. The curriculum is called Hometown Heroes and is by the Vietnam Veteran Memorial Fund. You can read all about his involvement here and here.

Adriana Sanpere just started a new blog where she talks about historical topics she is passionate about. Read “Thoughts of a Budding Historian” to find out if you share an interest.

Chris Schloemer welcomed his sixth grandchild into this world. Join me in congratulating him on the birth of Dax Raymond Schloemer!

Ben Sorensen just completed his graduate certificate in the American Rev- olution from APUS (with a 4.0 GPA!).

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Tech ReviewsWhat technology do our members use to help in their studies?

NoodleTools

This website is wonderful. Dedicated to taking notes, NoodleTools uses digital notecards to arrange your notes into whatever order you wish. By first creating a project, you can then add as many notecards as you need. Arrange them by subject, by source, or even by keywords. Once you have arranged your notecards, an outline for your paper can be created by sam- pling dragging your notecards to the Outline section of the website. Creat- ing bibliographies is also fairly simple. You can search the web by author, by title, or even by ISBN. NoodleTools uses WebCat, Amazon, and other websites to find the source. You can then import the citation details di- rectly into NoodleTools or you can enter them manually. There is a place to add annotations as well so creating an annotated bibliography is easy.While the cost is not free, for $15 per year, NoodleTools is an economical and terrific value.

Papers

This software is responsible for collecting and organizing articles and pa- pers you have saved on your computer. Available for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Windows, Papers allows me to organize all my saved PDF and Word files, assign keywords, even import metadata from the web. Papers will al- so search over 25 databases including JSTOR, Project Guttenberg, Library of Congress, and Google Scholar. You can also create collections which al- lows you to add all the articles about that one important paper (i.e. THE- SIS) in a convenient source. Papers also has a reading pane so you can read your articles without having to exit the software or open another program. While Papers is not the most user friendly software, it’s abilities are worth the $79 you spend up front. However, they do offer a student license for just $49 which makes this program extremely affordable.

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Club NewsWhat’s been happening or will be happening

On Friday, June 13th, 2014, the Saber and Scroll met for their Annual Meeting at the Gaylord Hotel and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. This was the second annual meeting to be held during the Commencement Weekend.

President Lew Taylor called the meeting to order at 1PM. There were nine mem- bers present, Dr. Richard Hines and Dr. John Carleton of the APUS history de- partment, and Jennifer Souza our Student and Alumni Affairs advisor.

Lew began the meeting by going over the accomplishments of the past year: the field trip to Gettysburg and Antietam, Cowpens, and King’s Mountain; the Holi- day Card mailing: and our participation in Wreaths Across America. It was also mentioned that we had achieved Gold Status last year and are working to repeat that again this year. The membership of the Saber and Scroll is now over 950 and continuing to grow. There will be another "virtual" membership drive com- ing up in July and hopefully we can cross the 1000 member mark.

Also discussed were the changes to the constitution and the possibility of es- tablishing a mentoring program through the Saber and Scroll that would be a proactive type of program. Once someone declared for a major in history they would be contacted by one of the mentors, offering the service of the program to the student. In order to be selected as a mentor you would have to have re- ceived your MA in history and have had a GPA of no less than 3.5.

Dr. Hines then explained the change that is taking place in graduate level cours- es. Most graduate level courses in history will be changing from sixteen weeks to eight weeks. This is being done without sacrificing any quality in the cours- es. The same amount of work will need to be done – just in a shorter time frame. This is to help retain quality instructors and to help eliminate “dead” time that occurs during the sixteen week classes.

The meeting “officially” adjorned at 2:10PM, but continued “unofficially” for an additional thirty minutes in the lobby of the hotel.

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Club News (cont.)

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Newsletter TeamCopy Editor: DeAnna Stevens

The Last Word

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

— Cicero