A better climate for women
“Amy Lopez and Miryam of Nazareth. What can we say about both these women?” Sister Laura Leming, FMI, asked those who gathered to see Lopez, director of conference services and Kennedy Union, receive the 2006 Miryam Award on March 22. On the list of their gifts and graces, was this: “She is not fearful of other’s power. She acts as if she is a partner in their growth.”
The Miryam Award honors an individual or group for enhancing the climate for women on campus and includes $1,000 to be designated to an area on campus. Lopez will dedicate the money “toward education about the most destructive and prevalent crime affecting college-age women – sexual assault,” she said. “We need to look for creative and successful ways to provide education to our students and staff that goes beyond telling our women how to be safe. We need to provide training to Public Safety and to prioritize sexual assault education for them and for our male students. Our climate will never be welcoming, supportive and Marianist as long as this crime exists in our community.”
Self study
A sparrow hides near Zehler Hall from the returning winter weather.
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Helping Father Marty in Nairobi
Campus trend-spotters, take note. Handmade beaded necklaces are quietly draping the necks of more and more employees across campus.
The hands that make them belong to Chris McCann, records auditor in the office of the registrar. The hands that sell them are her coworker’s, Rosey Terzian. The hands and bodies and minds that benefit from them belong to children attending a Marianist-run school in Nairobi, Kenya.
All proceeds of the necklaces, which sell for between $7 and $20, benefit Our Lady of Nazareth, a school of 1,500 children ages 5 to 14 run by Father Marty Solma, S.M. ’71. (Solma describes the school in this video.)
McCann didn’t have sales or Solma in mind when she took up beading just before this past Christmas. In fact, she didn’t want the trouble of selling them, Terzian’s suggestion, and thought if she could avoid thinking of a charity to support she’d be off the hook.
That’s when her boss, Tom Westendorf, walked by and said, “How about Father Marty?”
In just three weeks of sales, McCann has raised nearly $1,000, almost enough to sponsor two hot meals a day, school uniforms and education for eight children for a year.
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Cooped up
A sparrow hides near Zehler Hall from the returning winter weather.
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An itch to scratch
Why become an engineer?
“I wanted to be able to make new things to help others as well as myself,” Chris Heitkamp told a room full of third-graders. He and two other first-year chemical engineering students accompanied instructor Beth Hart to Holy Angels School today to teach Erin Wysocki’s students what it means to be an engineer.
After the talk, the students were given a task: create a better backscratcher. First, teams of third-graders sketched their ideas. Next, choosing from craft sticks, dowel rods, pipe cleaners and tape, they built, and rebuilt and rebuilt again.
Finally, they calculated the cost of production, learning that engineers look to balance beauty and cost, function and form when creating a new product.
Erin and Grace used the colorful tape to make their backscratcher pretty. Helen and Ayanna wrapped their handle in red and white pipe cleaners to make it soft to hold. Jacob and Joe made the most expensive creation, reinforcing dowel rods with craft sticks, zip ties and electrical tape.
“Getting kids interested in engineering is very important because we’re declining in the numbers going into engineering,” Heitkamp said.
UD student Jacob Kremer agreed: “And they say if you’re not interested in it before the fifth grade, then you’re not going to go into it.”
Peaking their interest was just what the UD students did. The third-graders didn’t want to part with their creations, agreeing they should stay in the classroom for others to see.
Could be the beginning of a new itch to scratch.
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Good show in the ‘sticks’
You can imagine my jubilation when the NCAA men’s basketball tournament brackets showed my alma mater (Ohio State) and the team I’ve followed since I was 9 years old (North Carolina) playing in Dayton for the first and second rounds.
After watching Ohio State’s practice session with my 4-year-old twin daughters, I found that the ESPN SportsCenter mentality reaches a young age. One of them said, “Daddy, the Buckeyes practice wasn’t very much fun. All they did was shoot. I liked that Iowa (Northern Iowa) school better. They dunked.”
Although the Friday games were close and my teams won, it was bad basketball. I looked forward to Sunday and watching UNC and OSU advance to the Sweet 16. The aforementioned jubilation came to a screeching halt as both teams lost.
However, I walked away from arena proud that UD put on yet another excellent show for the nation. I heard many complimentary things about UD during the weekend. As my Google news alert e-mails came in fast and furious with mentions of “University of Dayton,” I had to smile at the number of major media outlets who reported the happenings “out here in the sticks.”
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Lighting the way
Morning light shines onto a staircase in St. Mary Hall.
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Shadow study
Shadows of iron fencing fall on stone columns leading out of the Humanities Plaza.
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Tournament time
Tonight I was able to have fun at UD Arena. We hosted an NCAA play-in game between Hampton and Monmouth universities. I’ve been to several of these games and really enjoyed all of them. Let me explain why.
Usually when I attend, it is to watch our beloved Flyers play in head-to-head competition. But tonight I watched from the onset not caring who won or who lost. Monmouth played better than Hampton, but both teams played with determination and with guts. Monmouth out-gutted Hampton with the help of the boy-monster John Bunch. Big John was working as a ticket-taker at a movie theater (I am not making any of this up) when the wife of a D-III coach attended the movie and asked him if he played basketball (remember the kid is now 7’2″ and weighs 320 pounds). He wound up playing at a D-III for two years and went to Monmouth as a D-I player.
He is not a starter but plays with intensity and heart. His feet are slow, but he employs quick hands. And he seems to have good court vision. Big John blocked shots all night long, and the crowd roared with approval with each block.
I left the Arena with a feel-good feeling after watching a kid who was never in the spotlight excel, and on national TV, when no one ever expected it to happen. His performance was fun to watch. And the best college men’s basketball crowd in America was won to his performance.
And guess what his and his teammates’ prize will be? To play in round one of the NCAA tournament against Villanova. I’ll bet the Monmouth kids don’t care who they play.
(The text is an excerpt of a message Barth sent to a listserv for Flyer fans after the game last night.)
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Signs of spring
The Mary Garden, between St. Mary Hall and the Immaculate Conception Chapel, shows the first signs of spring. Warm weekend weather made the daffodils grow, but today’s arctic blast chased away the rain clouds, bringing with it a cold, sunny day.
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