A photo of exterior of The Neely House restaurant

Cailín Murray and Russell Irving met outside the historic Thomas Neely home four years ago during what can technically be described as an act of trespassing. For decades, the home had stood abandoned and in disrepair, an eyesore in Muncie’s historic Emily Kimbrough Neighborhood. Murray, a Ball State associate professor of anthropology , had assumed that the ramshackle home was uninhabited. She entered […]

Dr. Alex Kaufman joined Ball State in 2018 as the Reed D. Voran Distinguished Professor of Humanities and teaches in the Honors College and the Department of English. He is co-editor of a book series on outlaws in literature, history, and culture and co-founder of a scholarly journal on Robin Hood studies. Below, he answers questions about the  enduring saga of Robin […]

First Sydney Noland screamed. Then she cried. “I’m sure my downstairs neighbor thought I was out of my mind,” she wrote on her blog. Noland ’17, was not out of her mind, but she was overwhelmed with emotion after reading a text message from a colleague who worked for the Seattle Seahawks. “Guess what? Russell […]

Jeff Harper shared a key personality trait with his great-grandfather. Ambition. Harper’s great-grandfather was Frank C. Ball, one of the five Ball brothers whose legacy is being celebrated during Ball State University’s Centennial. Jeff, too, was a successful businessman, having owned an industrial ceramic inspection and testing company. While Jeff had a Ph.D. in pharmacology, he […]