California University of Pennsylvania December 2012 Vol. 1,No. 3

Inside this Issue:

Staff:

Special Thanks:

Kelsey Baumgardner, Editor

Emma Will, Editor

Lindsey Gasper, Contributor

Kevin Hager, Contributor

Stephanie Moore, Contributor

Justin Johnson, Photo

Contributor

Honors Conference

Page 1

Fall 2012 Graduating Seniors

Page 2

Carnegie Museum of Art

Excursion

Page 3

Organic Farming Excursion

Page 4

Flight 93 Memorial Excursion

Page 5

PASSHE Summer Honors

Program 2012

Page 6

SHAB Scavenger Hunt

Page 6

CAL U HONORS NEWS

Kim Orslene

Dr. Aune

Dr. Fox

Dr. Meiss

Dr. Persinger

Honors

Conference

By Justin Johnson The 2012 National Collegiate

Honors Council conference

sounds unnerving merely in

name, and this intimidation is

only matched by the amount of

undergraduate students who

attended it; roughly 1,950

young scholars presented at the

research conference in Boston,

Massachusetts, and I am one of

the many who believe it was

the experience of a lifetime.

Just last year I participated in

the Intersections conference

sponsored by our university,

but like many can understand,

treading into unknown territory

is a hard fear to overcome.

NCHC’s first excursion – City

As Text - pitted me against that

fear, along with three other Cal

U students and two students

from universities across the

nation. Our assignment had us

explore the streets of Boston in

order to find the Financial Dis-

trict and

Waterfront

with nothing

but a map.

(A paper

map, mind

you, not an

iPhone.)

We quickly

found our-

selves lost,

and it was

incredible. As our group asked

locals for directions, they also

recommended Al’s sub shop

for good food, places to see,

and places no one should see.

Eventually we found our desti-

nation, explored, recorded the

information, and presented it to

hundreds of conference at-

tendees when we returned. But

the City-As-Text experience

mainly concerned the journey.

It allowed typical honors stu-

dents to see the great city of

Boston outside of a history

book, letting us use all of our

senses – sound, smell, taste - to

find our way around.

The research conference itself

was an equally outstanding

event, and no textbooks were

necessary to participate. From

a plenary speaker debating the

virtues of right and wrong, to

research presentations focused

on the life of children in the

European Middle Ages, there

seemed to be something for

everyone to attend, question,

and enjoy.

As a presenter in one of

NCHC’s poster sessions, I

needed to overcome a fear of

public speaking and ignorance

quickly... or so I thought. As I

mentioned, nearly two thou-

sand people attended the con-

ference, and most of these were

students just as nervous and

doubtful of their abilities as I

was. As the sessions pro-

gressed, however, we all ex-

plained our work, debated and

defended our rationales, but

most importantly, we came to

know each other as both people

and honors students. Small

groups of attendees showed

interest in my work, some who

never heard of it, and many

with such enthusiasm, (Continued on page 2)

Honors Students Stephanie Moore, Kelly Fitzpatrick, and Brittany Kusniar

Page 2 Honors News

Fall 2012

Graduating Seniors

Kathryn M. Brunetta

Honors Thesis: “Abraham Lincoln:

America’s 16th President, America’s First

Dictator”

Advisor: Dr. Sean Madden

Gina E. Buscemi

Honors Thesis: “Albigensian and Samo-

gitian Crusades in the European Theater”

Advisor: Dr. Paul Crawford

Chad J. Dechowitz

Honors Thesis: “Law and

Lawyers: The Past, Present, and

Future of the Legal Profession”

Advisor: Dr. Craig Smith

Meghan R. Gavin

Honors Thesis: “A Study of the Delibera-

tion of Banned Books”

Advisor: Dr. J. Drew McGukin

Rebecca A. Kuklar

Honors Thesis: “Hippotherapy: A

Remarkable Method in Sensory Stimula-

tion and Equine

Movement for Children with Autism and

Cerebral Palsy”

Advisor: Professor Nancy Carlino

Kelsey L. Landy

Honors Thesis: “Teaching Through Effec-

tive Communication Techniques”

Advisor: Dr. J William Hug

Emily Martik

Honors Thesis: “A Study of Readership of

the Cal Times Newspaper”

Advisor: Dr. Margo Wilson

Bridget A. Rogan

Honors Thesis: “Change the Sardines? A

Study in the Semantics of Stage

Management”

Advisor: Dr. Michelle Pagen

David C. Schmidt

Honors Thesis: League Salary

Structures: “How MLB Compares With the

Other Major Sports and Does Team

Market Size Matter?”

Advisor: Dr. Brian Wood

Rebecca Serafini

Honors Thesis: “Exploring the

Options”

Advisor: Dr. Barbara Bonfanti

Melissa L. Straub

Honors Thesis: “The Benefits of Junior

Hockey vs. Amateur Hockey: A Look Inside

the Pittsburgh Junior Penguins

Organization”

Advisor: Dr. Donald Franks

Honors Conference

(Continued from page 1)

they taught me things I never knew.

In essence, the conference was dedicated to

honors research, but it was so much more

than that. It was a glimpse of Boston

through my own eyes, it was getting lost

on a subway and eating outstanding food,

it was presenting my research that I spent

months evaluating, and it was making con-

nections and networking. It showed there

are others out there looking for answers,

but some are also looking for questions.

Attending the NCHC research conference

made me return to campus with an extraor-

dinary experience and a few new friends.

Who would’ve thought?

Honors News Page 3

we were greeted by the polite staff members of the

museum and we prepared ourselves for the art semi-nars that we would be attending until noon that day.

The topics discussed at the seminar were all different and abstract in their own way; however, each was ded-

icated to the aspect of ephemerality in art. One gradu-

ate student proudly engaged in her presentation on Xu Bing’s art at a North Carolina tobacco museum and his

placing of his anti-smoking structures within the con-fines of the museum’s property to show the negative

effects of smoking and abusing the substance, as he himself lost his father to the self-destructive agent.

Another presentation was by a young man who de-

tailed the secret life of Queen Victoria and her image being por-

trayed as sexually-charged in those days and how the British people responded to this social issue at the time. The third de-

scribed the quaint memorial of a little girl who perished during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. At the culmination of the semi-

nar, we embarked to explore all the museum has to offers in

terms of art aestheticism and meaning. We divided ourselves into small groups and adventured the art section of the muse-

um, bewildered at the sheer quantity of works put on display there. I examined many Greco-Roman sculptures and was fas-

I recently attended a field trip to the Carnegie Museum of Art

in Oakland, Pennsylvania, for my Honors art history class, “Global Transitions’ since 1300: Art, Guns, and the Govern-

ment”. Dr. Persinger gave us the opportunity to explore countless art exhibits outside the classroom and analyze ma-

terial we have not covered in her course. Myself being

strongly interested in seeing the art at Carnegie, pledged to attend one Friday morning in October; and so we set forth to

Oakland, anxious to see what lay ahead. When we arrived,

by Kevin Hager

Carnegie Museum of Art Excursion

detail in the statues erected there. The reason we were at

the museum was to analyze the exhibit on the World’s Fair, which at the time was being displayed in the temporary

exhibit showrooms. I was entranced by the sheer mass amount of gold and silver present, and the art-decor style

of vanities and bureaus of the early twentieth century. My

group and I were fascinated by the some of the artwork presented at the museum’s simplicity. One This field trip

gave me and other students in the Honors program the chance to broaden our horizons in everyday life.

Page 4 Honors News

Organic Farming Excursion

By Lindsey Gasper

The Honors Excursion to Athens, Ohio with Dr.

Sarah Meiss was truly an eye-opening experi-

ence. Although I am not in her “Topics in Sci-

ence and Technology: Sustainable Agriculture”

class, I still benefited from the trip. It was three

days from Wednesday, October 24, 2012 until

Friday, October 26, 2012. In those three days,

every restaurant we ate at was part of the "30

Mile Meals" program, meaning most, if not all,

of the dishes' ingredients came from local suppli-

ers. Almost all of the restaurants served all or-

ganic meals as well. We toured several organic

farms, an organic creamery (Snowville Cream-

ery) and even an organic winery (Shade Winery).

On Wednesday when we arrived, the first stop we made was

at the Farmer's Market that had everything from organic beef

to apple pies to beeswax candles. On Thursday, we met a re-

markable man by the name of Paul Strauss, who owns Equi-

nox Botanicals. He produces herbal-medicine, all from the

plants growing naturally on his own farm, which he also re-

sides on. Because we were about 10 minutes from Ohio Uni-

versity (Dr. Meiss's alma mater), we also had the chance to

tour the campus on top of a guided tour of the university's

ECOhouse and the OU Community Gardens.

On the last day, before we started our drive home,

we stopped at grocery store which carries

all the organic food we ate throughout the

trip as well as all the samples we

were given at the farms. By partici

pating in this excursion, I was able

to experience something that I

probably wouldn't have had the

chance to anywhere else.

Students visited the Snowville Creamery in Ohio.

(in no particular order) Caitlin Birmingham, Emily Murray, Nicole Kuhta, Bethann Wilson,

Alicia Wadsworth, Kaitlin Enck, Kathryn McAndrew, Abby Beatty, Lindsey Gasper,

Angelina Lorenzo, Andrew Tuzikow, and Chad Morrow

Honors News Page 5

Flight 93 Memorial Excursion

By Stephanie Moore

It’s the beginning of autumn and a

cool breeze blows onto your face. An eerie

calmness comes over you while you look at

the surrounding trees of changing colors,

empty fields, and visitors baring solemn fac-

es. On September 11, 2001, this was a place

of tragic and heroic moments. Today, it is a

place of memories, honor, and remembrance.

This is the Flight 93 Memorial.

I had expected the memorial to be

overwhelming in size, similar to the Wash-

ington Monument in Washington D.C., but

this memorial was more serene and meaning-

ful. The architects left the landscape as natu-

ral as possible, so the memorial is open to

natural changes throughout the seasons and

over time. From the entrance of the memori-

al, I followed a black, granite walkway to a

distant wall made of 40 marble panels, each

representing a passenger or crew member

from the flight. To my left, a black, sloped

wall marked off the exact crash site. There

were three inlets on the sloped wall where

visitors left tokens and memorials.

As I approached the marble panels at the

end of the walkway, I noticed that each one had

a name of either a passenger or crew member

inscribed on them. These panels made up a wall

that follows the exact flight path. At the end of

the panels is a wooden gate, made out of the

same type of trees that were destroyed by the

crash. Looking through this gate, I saw a sand-

stone boulder that marked were Flight 93 vio-

lently crashed.

I enjoyed that the architects left the final

resting place untouched and that this area re-

mains a place for the victims’ families to mourn

their losses. Because the memorial was so sim-

ple, visitors did not focus solely on the structure.

Instead, visitors could remember this tragic event

and be thankful for the brave passengers and

crew members on Flight 93. Being in this emo-

tional setting, I felt a sense of gratitude towards

the passengers and crew. I continually asked my-

self what I would have done if I was in the same

situation that they went through. And I could not

give an honest answer. The experience was one

that I will never forget. Who knows what would

have happened to our country if they had not tak-

en control of that plane.

The welcome sign at the entrance to the road way of the Flight

93 Memorial.

The marble wall with the names of each victim of Flight 93 en-

graved into each panel.

Page 6 Honors News

SHAB Scavenger

Hunt

By Kelsey Baumgardner

On Thursday Sep-

tember 27 the students of

SHAB held a welcome back

event for all UHP students.

At 7 pm students and SHAB

members filled the honors

classroom for a briefing of

how the nights event would

work. The event was a photo

scavenger hunt. In this hunt

students had a list of items

they had to take photographs

with. The list included things

such as the Vulcan statue,

the cow in the library, the no

stapler sign in Noss hall, a

professor, a desk assistant in

a residence hall, a communi-

ty assistant in a residence

hall, the California Universi-

ty sign, an employee from a

business in town, an AVI

employee, a Vulcan Flyer

bus stop, the oldest building

on campus, and the newest

building on campus.

Participants teamed

up in groups of three or for

and took off to accomplish

everything on the list. It was

a race to see who could

make it back with a picture

of everything first. Each

member of the first and se-

cond place teams was

awarded a gift card to the

Cal U bookstore.

It took the teams a

little less than an hour to

complete the list. Members

of the SHAB allowed crea-

tive ways of crossing some

things off the list, such as

letting participants take a

picture with an image of a

professor instead of inter-

rupting class to find a pro-

fessor on campus. It made

for a very competitive night.

Honors students could be

seen running all over cam-

pus and through the town

trying to get back as quickly

as they could. “It was crazy,

but I really enjoyed partici-

pating,” freshman University

Honors Program student

John Troutman said.

After teams returned

from the hunt they were of-

fered pizza and soda to re-

fresh themselves. All the

participants stuck around,

socialized, and enjoyed the

refreshments.

The first place team

consisted of John Troutman,

Lauren Schultheis, and Kel-

sey Baumgardner. The se-

cond place team consisted of

Miles McCauley, Rodger

Vigliotti, Logan Flannigan.

Other participants included

Haley Bashada and Stepha-

nie Moore.

PASSHE Summer

Honors Program

2012

This summer Cal U hosted the an-

nual Summer Honors Program.

Seamus Hutchens and Emma Will

were the scholarship winners from

Cal.

The trip, entitled “There and Back

Again: Medievalism, Modernity

and the University”, included a

week at Cal U with lectures on the

War of the Roses, medieval manu-

scripts, and college culture within

Oxford along with others present-

ed by Dr. Paul Crawford, Dr. Sa-

rah Downey, Dr. Rick Cumings,

Dr. M. G. Aune. This was fol-

lowed by two weeks in Oxford,

England where the students were able to tour various colleges, the Bodleian Library. They also were able to take day trips to historic sites such as Canterbury and Cressing Temple, which was once owned by the Knights Templar. The group also took part in fun activities like punting down the Thames and visiting the Harry Pot-ter studios.

The next PASSHE Summer Hon-

ors Program will be hosted by

Bloomsburg University. This pro-

gram, Music and Media: A Grand

European Tour, will examine mu-

sic and media, past and present, in

Europe and visit famous venues in

cities like London, Salburg, Vien-

na, Venice, and Rome. Interviews

for the Cal U scholarships recipi-

ents will tentatively take place on

December 11th for those who sub-

mitted their portfolio.

Honors students from the 2012 PASSHE

program in Oxford

Congratulations on

another semester

Honors Students!

Have a great winter

break, and see you

next semester!

Freshmen students John Troutman

and Kelsey Baumgardner pose with

the Vulcan statue as to complete

part of the photo scavenger hunt.