Name: Katelyn Perry
Majors Advised: Currently: Anthropology (ANTH) and Labor and Employment Relations (LER)
Previously: Criminology, Sociology, Economics, Psychology, Women’s Studies, English, and African and African American Studies
Hometown: Doylestown, PA
Educational Background:I’m a 3rd generation Penn Stater. My grandfather graduated from PSU in 1929 with a degree in chemistry. I didn’t inherit that science gene, though. I majored in English, and I have a graduate degree in Counseling. When I graduated from Penn State, I worked with mentally-challenged adults, and I had a part-time position at the Reading Area Community College in the Academic Programs and Student Development Office. I found incredible mentors there, and—with their support—I took on different positions, including teaching study skills, basic writing, and running ESL programs over the next seven years. I recognized that I wanted to work in a college setting at that point, and my mentors encouraged me to pursue a graduate degree. It took a lot of energy and a long time, but I eventually earned a Master of Science degree in Counseling.
Something most students don’t know about you: I have a terrible, terrible sense of direction (it might even be a learning disability of sorts), and I’m a very fast walker. So you might see me on campus—walking at top speed—with no idea where I’m going.
I lived in a small fishing town in Japan when I was 12, and I spent a year in Istanbul, Turkey after I graduated from high school.
Purple is my favorite color.
I have a “vagal” response to blood and surgical details—which basically means, I can’t handle blood, and I would be completely useless in any medical emergency. (Note to students: I have a No Bleeding Policy in my office)
I love music and need to be surrounded by it all the time—I would love to have a “soundtrack” for each day of my life.
My little boy taught me how to play chess recently, but he gets annoyed when we play because I have to talk myself through every move I make.
I love animals and I’m a vegetarian.
I changed my major 4 times as a Penn State student.
I get very attached to certain books and read them over and over.
I am not a fan of escalators. When I was a teenager, I fell down an escalator in a mall. It was a little traumatizing.
I’m left-handed.
If you could do college over again: Very definitely, I would have continued learning languages. I’m in awe of people who speak more than one language. I would have completed an internship to test out my interests, develop my professional network, and gain some practical experience. I would have taken more time to get to know my professors. And, surprisingly, I think I would have been less involved on campus. I was active in and held leadership positions in several student organizations—I remember being very stressed and busy.
What you like most about your job: There are so many things—I could write pages and pages. So, in order to avoid making you read a novel, I’ll list some adjectives and phrases to describe my job and work environment: energizing and exhausting at the same time, never boring, amazing students, rewarding, lots of problem-solving, an incredible boss, always changing, educational, fantastic colleagues and co-workers, challenging, fast-paced, and fun.
Liberal Arts Envoys Accepting Applications
By Rachel-Paige Mumenthaler
The Liberal Arts Envoys, a student ambassador group to the College of Liberal Arts is now accepting online applications for this upcoming year. Envoys give tours to distinguished alumni, prospective and accepted students, sit on accepted student panels, make calls to prospective and accepted students, and help to staff and organize alumni networking events. Applications are due October 14th and can be found on our website: http://laenvoys.weebly.com/
Small Girls PR speaking to Penn State students on October 7
By: Sean Donnelly
The co-founders of Small Girls PR, Mallory Blair and Bianca Caampued, will be visiting Penn State Tuesday, October 7 at 7:00 p.m. in 262 Willard to provide insight to those interested in the public relations industry. Hosted by the Public Relations Students Society of America (PRSSA), The small firm has come to represent brands as big as Pinkberry, Flavorpill, and GE since opening their doors three years ago. Forbes listed Small Girls as one of the top 15 women-led startups in 2013.
Small Girls has provided services to clients with a focus in consumer, fashion, technology and more. For all those interested in public relations and communications, this is a great opportunity to hear from the best in the business. If you would like more information regarding Small Girls PR and their visit, please contact Sean Donnelly through email at seandonnelly2015@gmail.com.
State Department Skype Calls
By: Megan Egan
This year, I am serving as the Penn State Campus Coordinator for the U.S. Department of State. If you are interested in setting up a skype call for a class, club meeting, or special event with a department official, please reach out to me (mye5069@psu.edu) so we can find someone in the department who works with your specific issue. This could include anything from refugees in Syria to climate change in Indonesia. The State Department works on a vast array of issues, and they want to share their work with you! Additionally, if you are interested in learning more about the State Department in general, careers with DoS, or internships, I am also available to assist with questions!
Join Relay For Life of Penn State
By: Megan Gasztonyi
Relay For Life is the world’s largest fundraising event to end cancer and happens around the world. Relay For Life of Penn State is a twenty-four hour walk-a-thon that raises money and awareness by proving “cancer doesn’t sleep and neither do we.” The funds raised go towards helping the American Cancer Society save lives by supporting education and prevention efforts, funding cancer research and providing free information and services for people with cancer who need it.
Apply to be a captain and join one of the twelve available committees to make Relay For Life 2015 happen at Penn State! Applications are currently open! For more information please visit psurelay.com!
Thank you!
Megan Gasztonyi
Recruitment and Involvement Overall Chairperson
Relay For Life of Penn State 2015
psurelayrecruitment@gmail.com
Democracy Matters Interest Meeting
By: Raven Moore
Democracy Matters is a non-partisan organization that is fueled by college students across the country and it’s sole mission is to get ‘big, private money out of politics and the people back in’ (www.democracymatters.org). Back in 2008, Penn State had it’s own Democracy Matters chapter and while it has been inactive for a few years, I thought now was a good time to reopen it and have Penn State join the many colleges in the United States with DM chapters who are working towards reforming political funding. If you are interested in hearing what Democracy Matters is all about or if you are interested in having your voice heard, please come to the interest meeting on September 26 (Friday) at 6:00 pm in Waring Commons (Seating area near the TV/main entrance).
Leadership positions are available, for those who are interest. If you would like more information on Democracy Matters, visit the website at www.democracymatters.org or email me at ram5791@psu.edu if you have any questions or suggestions. If you don’t think you will be able to make it to the meeting but are still interested in getting involved, please feel free to email me and I’ll be sure to send you an email detailing all that went on at the interest meeting.
Remember: Democracy is not about politics; it’s about making sure our voices are heard, and speaking up about the things that matter to us.
Student theatre organization to hold playwriting competition
BrianGutierrez
University Park acting troupe No Refund Theatre (NRT) is seeking entrants for Tell Me A Story, a short playwriting competition open to students of all Penn State campuses. The inaugural event will take place on April 24, 2015, with a firm submission deadline of March 1, 2015.
In an effort to expand their horizons, NRT is departing from their usual schedule of student-produced plays and musicals to spearhead a short playwriting competition, culminating in an evening of dramatic readings and awards ceremony, with prizes ranging from $50 to $500. Entries should be no longer than fifteen minutes long when read aloud, and must be original pieces, with each participant authoring only one script.
The Tell Me A Story contest committee will blindly review all submissions and choose eight to be read dramatically by a group of actors before an audience and a panel of distinguished judges from the community, student body, and university faculty. The authors of the top three plays will receive monetary awards as well as the opportunity to have their composition produced by NRT the following season.
For more information and to register for the competition, visit the Tell Me A Story page on the NRT website, norefundtheatre.weebly.com.
Sierra Leone: Of Markets and Women
By: Phoebe Canagarajah
The pungent smell of fish in the hazy sun, combined with the unique scents of those crowding around you, overtake your senses. You swivel your head around to find the rest of your group, trying to avoid looking at the stacks of fish swarmed by flies or the arranged piles of chicken feet. You watch your footing as you gingerly maneuver around low-rimmed baskets of onions and cassava leaves as your white sneakers become tinted by the red clay underfoot. Welcome to market, the hub of daily Sierra Leonean life! Looking past the hectic and overpowering scene before you, you see the beauty and serenity of the country—it’s large palm trees and green mountains, their vibrancy both breathtaking and surprising. You didn’t expect Africa to be like this.
As a Liberal Arts student, I had the honor to live and work around the city of Makeni in Sierra Leone for over two weeks this past June as part of Penn State’s HESE program. Most of my time was spent visiting markets and talking to households (generally head female figures), conducting research on general nutrition.
The Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship program at Penn State—commonly shortened to HESE—is a program for students from all disciplines interested in development to gain knowledge and hands-on experience. Last spring semester, my peers and I learned about social entrepreneurship and worked on research projects to be carried out over the summer field experience. Our research was closely tied to the venture we’re trying to develop, GRO Greenhouses. Sierra Leone has the highest rainfall in Africa, yet most of its population is malnourished. Taking advantage of the natural resources in effort to solve a need, GRO is committed to sustainably providing affordable greenhouses to responsible shareholders in order to provide communities with better seasonal nutrition. To this end, my research partner and I conducted a baseline study on common foods the general population ate to discover why malnourishment was an issue and to specify foods that would be needed and profitable to grow in greenhouses. This semester, we are writing a paper using this data in effort to get published and add to the body of literature about Sierra Leone.
Being able to qualitatively research households and build relationships was a rewarding, albeit demanding, experience. While initially exhausting, visiting homes and observing families’ lifestyles and experiences carried their own sense of adventure. My time in Sierra Leone would not have been as rich had I been unable to so immerse myself in Sierra Leonean daily life. I came away from Sierra Leone with an understanding of the lifestyle, a respect for the people and an enjoyment of their culture.
Liberal Arts Research Fair – September 2
The Liberal Arts Undergraduate Council will be hosting a Liberal Arts Research Fair on Tuesday, September 2nd at 6:30pm in 062 Willard. Please come out to learn about various research opportunities/assistantships from faculty within the College of the Liberal Arts. Pizza and refreshments will be provided after the event.
A Linguistic Performance
Jack DiMidio:
If you want to design a linguistics study, you must have the following things: a sound idea, competent data coders and experiment runners (who are often the same people), someone who can obtain enrichment money to pay the people you’ll be testing and to buy any necessary equipment (who also often applies to the above), a dedicated room in which to run the experiment, actual people to run the study on, a lot of patience, and lastly and most importantly the university’s permission. It seems pretty complex, and it is, but I’m here to tell you it’s possible, and I’ve seen it happen.
I’m freshman who is majoring in German and minoring in linguistics, and I worked under the study of Dr. Carrie Jackson who works both in the German department and for the Center for Language Science. I was very fortunate in the fall semester to have been enrolled in her GER 301 course—my first German course at PSU!—in which she asked me (well, the whole class really) whether any of us would want to be a RA (research assistant) in her linguistics lab. I jumped at the opportunity and I can say it was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my college career.
But the experience didn’t come without its difficulties. After a testing of the first iteration of the experiment, we found that the results were not at all what we were looking for and that there was a flaw in the way we tested our participants: it was too easy to cheat the study. Such a blow could have been spirit–sinking, but no. It took a bit of rearrangement and some more testing, and not to mention a lot of really difficult work, but we had a study that was finally ready to be run.
We sent out emails to all potentially eligible students and I even personally asked some of my peers to participate. After all, they’d earn $15 for their efforts; it was like schoolwork without the pressure of getting a good grade and with the benefit of enough money for two Chipotle burritos.
Every time I ran a participant, I had to explain what each task was going to be like. This was not easy, as the tasks they had to complete were somewhat abstract and their purpose was seemingly opaque. This was intentional (the opacity) so that the participant would produce the effect we wanted them to produce. But with each participant, my speech became more regular, I didn’t have to look at my directions cheat sheet, and I learned what words were best to describe each task (without giving its intent away).
For me, working in a linguistics lab was mostly a communicative challenge (big surprise), and I learned that hard work does in fact pay off. I had to use a bit of rhetoric, a pinch of self-discipline, and a heaping tablespoon of endurance in order to form the stew of data we will now use to prove (or disprove) our hypothesis!