Elizabethtown College News 
Back to top 11/29/2007 'Gint' earns several awards from theatre organization David Zarko, resident artistic director of the Northeast Theatre, a professional theatre in Scranton, came to see the Elizabethtown  College theatre production of "Gint" in November. Zarko was serving as the production's official respondent from Region II (Mid-Atlantic region) of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF), an organization of thousands of university and college theatre programs across the country. Zarko gave a number of awards to the production. The cast was given a certificate of merit for ensemble acting; lighting designer Barry Fritz was given a certificate of merit for his lighting design; and Associate Professor of Theatre Michael Swanson was given a certificate of merit for directing the show. Cast members Sam Gillam '09 (left) and Mike Gephart '08 (right) were nominated for the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship competition for their work as Gint and Older Man, respectively. Zarko also nominated a scene from the show, in which Gint meets a group of razorback hogs, to be considered to travel to KCACTF Region II's annual Festival, which will be held in January at Carnegie Mellon University. More than a thousand theatre students and faculty will attend the festival. Back to top 11/29/2007 Downs '08 first Blue Jay to be named All-American of the Year Elizabethtown College senior middle hitter Kelly Downs (Airville, PA/Red Lion) has been named the 2007 ESPN The Magazine College  Division Academic All-American of the Year in volleyball, as voted upon by members of the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).Downs is the first Elizabethtown student-athlete to earn the prestigious Academic All-American of the Year honor, which goes to the highest vote-getter among candidates for the Academic All-America team. She is also the first Blue Jay to be named first-team Academic All-America since Mandi (Ewing) Romig '01 was selected to the women's at-large team in 2001 and the ninth overall. A second-team Academic All-American in 2006, Downs joins Duane Snavely '85 (men's soccer), Gary Yeager '95 (baseball) and Megan Halladay '04 (women's soccer) as two-time Academic All-America selections. Read more. Back to top 11/28/2007 Three alums earn Educate for Service awards Three Elizabethtown College graduates recently received Educate for Service awards from their alma mater. The highest honor given to  alumni, these awards are presented to those who have made exceptional contributions to the community, professional field or the College. Gary L. Myers (from left) of Smyrna, Ga., received a Service to Humanity award, Ronald Shubert of Elizabethtown received a Service to the College award, and Col. Jeffrey B. Miller of Harrisburg received a Service through Professional Achievement award.Gary L. Myers graduated cum laude from Elizabethtown in 1971 and earned his doctorate from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1975. He is chief of the clinical chemistry branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. He also serves as the scientific director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Reference and Research in Blood Lipids at the CDC. Myers’ 30-year career at the CDC has focused on improving the laboratory measurement of biochemical markers used to assess chronic disease risk, particularly cardiovascular disease. As the CDC’s representative on the National Cholesterol Education Program’s Laboratory Standardization Panel, he played a pivotal role in developing national guidelines to improve the reliability of cholesterol testing. Col. Jeffrey B. Miller is the 18th commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police. Miller enlisted in the State Police in July 1984. During his progression through the ranks, Miller served in various assignments, including Patrol, Internal Affairs, Drug Law Enforcement and Criminal Investigation. He served as the criminal investigation section commander at Troop K, Philadelphia, and as the station commander at Troop L, Schuylkill Haven, prior to being named the commanding officer of Troop H, Harrisburg, in 1995. Miller was named director of legislative affairs and policy in 2000. He was appointed as commissioner on Jan. 21, 2003, and unanimously confirmed by the Senate on March 24, 2003. He was unanimously reconfirmed by the Senate on April 17, 2007. As a continuing education student, Miller earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Elizabethtown College in 1995, and then earned a master’s degree in public administration from the Pennsylvania State University. Miller is also a former adjunct professor of criminal justice at Elizabethtown. He received national and international acclaim for his sensitive handling of the 2006 Amish school tragedy in Nickel Mines. His strong, calm and stabilizing presence in the media projected a sense of respect for the victims and survivors, and precluded the sensationalism often associated with such horrific events. Ronald Shubert graduated from Elizabethtown College in 1962 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. He then spent two years earning a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Kansas. In 1964 he returned to Elizabethtown and began his teaching career, interrupted only by the period from 1968 to 1970 when he earned his doctorate in mathematics from the Pennsylvania State University. He was promoted to associate professor in 1970 and to professor in 1973. During his career at Elizabethtown, Shubert taught 27 different courses, many of which he developed or helped to develop. In addition to leading the Department of Mathematical Sciences for 26 years, he also served as the first program director for computer science. He served on many campus-wide committees, advised the Math Club and Ski Club, and served as the College’s NCAA representative. Back to top 11/28/2007 Students seek instruments for service-learning project A group of Elizabethtown College students who hope to return music to an  underprivileged South African school are seeking donations of used wind instruments. Donations must be received by Dec. 14, and following minor repairs, instruments will be shipped to a rural school in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa.To make a donation or to find out how to support this effort, contact Karendra Devroop, assistant professor of music, at 717-361-1532, or Kim Sandifer, senior music education major, at sandiferk@etown.edu. Devroop, who also serves as director of music education, and Sandifer are leading the South African Music Program along with Michael Roy, assistant professor of psychology. The program will culminate with two students and their professors spending a week in South Africa training that country’s teachers about the essentials of running and sustaining a music program, working directly with South African students, and conducting research on the impact of the music program. In addition to creating a sustainable instrumental program in South Africa, the program will lead to three separate psychology of music studies that will be submitted to peer-reviewed journals in the United States and in South Africa and will be presented at local and regional conferences by faculty and students. The South African Music Program will be completed in partnership with faculty from the University of Kwazulu-Natal and Pretoria University, both in South Africa, and will involve Elizabethtown psychology students and members of the College’s chapter of the Pennsylvania Collegiate Music Education Association. The project is being sponsored through a Collaborative Interdisciplinary Scholarship Program (CISP) grant from the College. Created through a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, CISP offers financial support for interdisciplinary scholarship projects undertaken jointly by teams of faculty, students and professional staff. CISP is administered through the Elizabethtown’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. Back to top 11/19/2007 Erin Fisher '08 earns All-America honors Elizabethtown College senior Erin Fisher (McEwensville, PA/Warrior Run) earned All-America honors with a 15th-place  finish at the NCAA Division III Women's Cross Country championships. She is the second Blue Jay women's runner to earn All-America honors, joining Melissa St. Clair (2003) along with men's team members Dustin Scott (2001), Steve Sanko (2004) and Jose Miranda (2004). Fisher crossed the finish line of the 6,000-meter race in 21:46 to help the Blue Jays end up tied for 23rd overall in a field of 32 teams with the University of Puget Sound at 581 points, the best finish in three trips to nationals for the program. "I was really proud of how the team handled all of the chaos that exists at the national championships. They ran a really poised race like seasoned veterans, and didn't act like they were just happy to be there," said head coach Chris Straub. "This is a great exclamation point on a wonderful season." For Fisher, the All-America recognition caps a season that saw her win three individual races, including her second straight Middle Atlantic Conference championship and the NCAA Mideast Regional title one week earlier. Back to top 11/19/2007 Pres. Long, multicultural recruiter participate in '100 men reading' President Ted Long and Coordinator of Multicultural Recruitment David Stewart were among the more than 100 men who read to  students in the Harrisburg School District on Nov. 7 as part of "100 Men Reading." The event was sponsored by the American Literacy Corporation, the SuperReader Program and the Harrisburg School District and featured men from various organizations, from Pa. Senator Jeffrey Piccola to clergymen, business executives, construction workers, reporters and policemen. Long and Stewart both visited the Math and Science Academy at the Ben Franklin Elementary School to read to a fifth-grade class and a seventh-grade class, respectively. Besides promoting reading, the 100 Men Reading program provides the school district with an opportunity to build a positive relationship with the community and allows students to interact with professional men who serve as role models. Stewart – who became involved with the program through his acquaintance with Floyd Stokes, executive director of the American Literacy Program – enlisted Long to join in the event. “I believe the program was a great success,” Stewart said. “I think it speaks volumes to our commitment to education beyond the borders of Elizabethtown College, not to mention within the local community of Harrisburg.” Back to top 11/16/2007 College makes assessment info available By participating in two national initiatives, Elizabethtown College has joined hundreds of other schools that are making information on  how well they perform directly available to parents and students. Efforts like these are the result of pressure from Congress for greater transparency and as a result of growing discontent with current rankings.Elizabethtown is one of 257 institutions nationwide that are making student satisfaction scores available through a joint initiative by USA TODAY and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). Benchmark scores from these institutions – which compare a school’s score in five categories against national averages for institutions of their type – are currently posted on USA TODAY’s searchable online database. A printed guide will also be available. NSSE annually mails its survey to randomly selected first-year and senior students at participating colleges. The questions are related to desired outcomes of college and address five types of experiences – the five categories scored on the national database – that research suggests any college-bound student out to be looking for: level of academic challenge, active and collaborative learning, student-faculty interaction, enriching educational experience and supportive campus environment. Elizabethtown is also participating in a similar effort by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU). The University & College Accountability Network, or U-CAN, is a national database that provides, in a common format, concise, Web-based consumer-friendly information on individual private colleges and universities. U-CAN consists of hundreds of institutional profiles that contain comparable data and targeted links to more detailed information available on each institution’s Web site. The information included in the profiles covers admissions, enrollment, academics, student demographics, graduation rates, most common fields of study, transfer of credit policy, accreditation, faculty information, class size, tuition and fee trends, price of attendance, financial aid, campus housing, student life and campus safety. U-CAN also gives consumers easy access to information on average loans at graduation, undergraduate class-size breakdown, and net tuition for hundreds of colleges. Back to top 11/9/2007 'To Serve Tomorrow' closes at nearly $47 million Having raised nearly $47 million, Elizabethtown College celebrated the successful closing of its campaign, To Serve Tomorrow, at an Oct. 26  President’s Dinner. The College surpassed its original $35-million goal by 34 percent.Designed to enhance student learning by creating programs and facilities that will support student experiential learning and research-driven programs, To Serve Tomorrow was the result of a multi-year process of institutional assessment. The projects undertaken support the educational vision outlined in the Strategic Vision for Institutional Identity and Educational Excellent that was adopted in 2006. Funds raised during the campaign will be or have been used to create an endowment to support the research of the Young Center on Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, the largest international center for research on groups including the Amish and Mennonites; raise giving for the restricted endowment, Annual Fund and other projects; provide funding toward the construction of the $19.8-million Masters Center for Science, Mathematics and Engineering; construct the $5.2-million James B. Hoover Center for Business, home of the business and international business programs, the S. Dale High Center for Family Business and the Edward R. Murphy Center for Continuing Education and Distance Learning; fund a renovation of the student center, Brossman Commons; and provide athletics with improved facilities renovation and construction. “To Serve Tomorrow has raised more than $47 million to help offset the costs associated with the largest period of capital construction and program building in the College’s more-than-100-year history,” said President Theodore Long. “In addition to generous support from a number of foundations, corporations, and friends, more than 8,000 alumni gave to the College. This represents over 50 percent of our alums and over 40,000 gifts received.” Pres. Ted Long recognized those who provided leadership during the Campaign: (from left) Rick Jordan of Mechanicsburg, a 1970 graduate who served as campaign chair; James Hoover of Locust Valley, N.Y., a 1975 graduate who served as national leadership gifts chair; James Shreiner of Lancaster, a 1973 graduate who led the Trustee Institutional Advancement Committee and the Hoover Business Center Campaign; and David Hosler of Lancaster, a 1972 graduate who is chairman of the board of trustees. Back to top 11/7/2007 Volleyball, women's soccer advance to NCAA tournament The Elizabethtown College volleyball and women's soccer team advanced to the NCAA Division III tournament.  The volleyball team opened play with a 3-0 win over Neumann College in regional action on Nov. 8 at Haverford College. Game scores were 30-20, 30-24 and 30-27. The Blue Jays (32-6 overall) won their 12th consecutive match overall and advanced to a Nov. 10 regional semifinal against either DeSales University or Haverford. Four members of the volleyball team were named All-Commonwealth Conference. Seniors Kelly Downs (Airville, PA/Red Lion) and Ashley Whitmarsh (New Castle, DE/Padua Academy) were first-team selections while senior Stacey Wasserman (Upperco, MD/Owings Mills) and sophomore Paige Tanner (Waynesboro, PA/Waynesboro) were second-team choices. In addition, Downs was recognized as Player of the Year while Randall Kreider was honored for the second straight season as Coach of the Year after leading the Blue Jays to a 29-6 regular-season record and the top seed in the conference tournament. The Elizabethtown College women's soccer team will play Union (N.Y.) College in the first round of the NCAA Division III tournament on Nov. 10 at 1:30 p.m. on the campus of William Smith College in Geneva, N.Y. The Blue Jays (17-3-1 overall) are making their second straight appearance in the NCAA playoffs and sixth in program history after earning an at-large bid following a 3-0 loss at Messiah College in the Commonwealth Conference championship match. In addition, junior forward Jenna Russo (Florham Park, NJ/Hanover Park) was named Commonwealth Conference Player of the Year to lead a group of seven Elizabethtown players earning All-Conference honors. Senior midfielder Jenny Fromuth (Wyomissing, PA/Wyomissing) and senior defender Jamie Alvanitakis (Landenberg, PA/Avon Grove) joined Russo on the first time, while junior forward Brooke Dotterer (Spring City, PA/Owen J. Roberts), sophomore midfielder Erin Scott (West Chester, PA/Bishop Shanahan), senior defender Emily Gunter (Hockessin, DE/A.I. duPont) and junior defender Gretchen Geiger (Pilesgrove, NJ/Woodstown) were second-team choices. Back to top 11/6/2007 Students travel internationally to explore European-Indian relationship What was the relationship between Europeans and Indians in the lower Susquehanna Valley during the early 17th century? A group of  Elizabethtown College students sought answers to this question in nearby Washington Boro and as far away as Berlin, London and Stockholm.Six students participated in the College’s archaeological field school this past May in Washington Boro, at the site of an historical Susquehannock Indian village that Captain John Smith visited in 1608. Uncovered at that time were indigenous items created by the Susquehannock in addition to European artifacts such as trade beads, an iron ax head, arrowheads, copper and clay objects. These items, which were analyzed and process at the College’s Public Archaeology Lab, will be on display at High Library beginning on Nov. 21, honoring American Indian Heritage Month. The exhibit, which is open to the public free of charge, will run through Dec. 31. Current hours for the Library are 7:45 – 1 a.m., Monday through Thursday; 7:45 a.m. – 10 p.m. on Friday; 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. on Saturday; and 1 p.m. – 1 a.m. on Sunday. After the excavation, five of the six students completed a course on historical methods taught at Elizabethtown. They then traveled in July to Berlin, London and Stockholm with faculty members from the College to conduct further research on Indian contact with Europeans at museums and archives. Jasmine Gollup, a junior history and archaeology major from Lothian, Md., and Elizabethtown Swedish exchange student Gustav Montgomerie (above center) examined 17th-century military equipment similar to that sent to the New Sweden Colony, some of which ended up being traded to Susquehannock villages. They worked with Martin Skoog, researcher at the Royal Armoury Museum in Stockholm. “Students were looking for the origin of the European pieces we’d found in Washington Boro,” said Associate Professor of Anthropology Robert Wheelersburg, who also supervised the summer field school. “They looked at other artifacts and collections to discover when and where these pieces were manufactured and who produced them. They also had to look through documents to deduce the type of relationship between the Europeans and Indians living here at that time.” The students are currently writing theses, using documented artifacts, on a topic involving Indian-European conflict and cooperation in the 17th century. They are being supervised by the faculty members who traveled to Europe with them. “Students are writing these theses for the College’s Honors Program or as an independent project,” Wheelersburg said. “They worked with a variety of professionals – faculty, archivists, museum directors – to conduct their own research and develop their own projects based on the resources available to them.” The opportunity for students to travel to Europe was made possible by a Collaborative Interdisciplinary Scholarship Program (CISP) that was developed by Wheelersburg. CISP was made possible through a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Education. “Our goal was to develop a process for interdisciplinary study,” Wheelersburg said. “The students and faculty were from multiple programs across campus, but the common denominator was that all the projects undertaken were related to ethnic cooperation and conflict. All of them speak to how the visiting Europeans and the Susquehannock Indians living here interacted.” Back to top 11/2/2007 Faculty members to present recital of vocal works with guitar Sarah Daughtrey, who recently joined Elizabethtown College as an assistant professor of music, will give a recital as part of the Monday Concert Series.  The event will feature vocal works with guitar, a combination not frequently seen on the concert stage. Joining Daughtrey will be Grammy-winning guitarist and Artist-in-Residence David Cullen. The recital is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Nov. 12, in Zug Recital Hall and is open to the public free of charge.There is a long history of vocal music accompanied by plucked instruments, ranging from English lute songs of the Renaissance, to the great popularity of the guitar in the early 19th century, to more recent works. This recital will feature the song cycle “Charm Me Asleep” on old English poems by award-winning composer Daniel Pinkham, Italian songs from the Napoleonic era, lieder by Schubert, and songs by Puerto Rican composer and guitarist Ernesto Cordero. Daughtrey, a mezzo-soprano, comes to Elizabethtown from Marshall University in West Virginia, where she was also an assistant professor of music. She is a candidate for the doctor of music in vocal performance and literature at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. Daughtrey received a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from Austin Peay State University and pursued graduate studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she was a Knoxville Opera Company apprentice and performed in the Company’s Educational Outreach Program. A Middle Tennessee District Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, she also performed several roles with the University’s Opera Theatre. Recent performances by Daughtrey include a presentation at Indiana University as student/singer in world-renowned baritone Håkan Hagegård’s staging of Argento’s cycle “From the Diary of Virginia Woolf.” She was also a soloist with the Columbus (Indiana) Symphony Orchestra for a concert of arias and dances from Glinka’s “Ruslan and Lyudmila,” as well as alto soloist with the South Bend Symphony for Haydn’s “Lord Nelson Mass” on the Notre Dame campus. In the spring, Daughtrey will be a part of the premiere of Elizabethtown faculty members James Haines and John Rohrkemper’s new opera, “Las Madres de la Plaza,” serving as vocal director and playing the role of Isabella in the production. |
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