Macie McCallion

Recently, I decided to join the American Sign Language Club here at Stockton University.  I had joined multiple other clubs before making the decision to join American Sign Language Club.  I am currently a member of the Marine Science Club, C.L.A.W.S. (Collaborative Leaders Advocating Wellness at Stockton), Ping Pong Club, the Disney Association and now the American Sign Language Club.

I decided to join each of these organizations because I had a genuine interest in all of them.  However, there was more to the reason of why I joined the American Sign Language Club than just having an interest in the subject matter.  This past year, my grandfather developed a benign tumor on the cochlea of his good ear and he is now fully deaf.  I joined the American Sign Language club because I now understand what it’s like to have a communication barrier.  My ultimate goal is to become fluent in Sign Language.  This goal was inspired by my grandfather, but I wish to follow through with it because I think it is a huge asset to be able to speak through sign language.  I hope to inspire others in my family to learn how to use sign language and hopefully I will be able to teach my grandfather as well so it could ease the communication barrier between us.

I hope no one else in my family develops complete hearing loss but if they do I am confident that I will be more prepared. I believe sign language is a beautiful form of communication that should be more widely taught throughout our education systems.

Nube Airiana Munoz

The Honors Experience was an amazing event that was held on June 21^st of 2015 at Stockton University. It was hosted by students of the Honors Program. The Honors Experience was an overnight event in which newcomers to the Honors Program could experience a glimpse of what it feels like to be a part of the Honors Program. New Honors students including myself arrived at Stockton on a Sunday morning excited to begin a day that promised to be worthwhile and would ultimately mark the beginning of a new chapter in our lives. After check-in parents and students had lunch together and listened to upperclassmen members of the Honors Program introduce themselves and speak about the different variety of clubs and organizations that they were currently involved with on campus. It was fantastic to find out about the countless clubs and organizations that Stockton had to offer so that students could participate in something they truly enjoyed while at the same time being able to get involved outside the classroom.

Then, it was time to say goodbye to our parents and head over to the first activity of the day, which was none other than Irish dancing. It was now time to meet other incoming Honors students and start to bond and get to know one another. Everyone sat in a circle, and we went around introducing ourselves and where we were from. Moments later an instructor showed us some steps of Irish dancing. We all were confused and without a doubt everyone or most of us messed up the steps, but we did it together and had some real fun. As the day went on we had some more fun when we started playing some icebreakers. One of the icebreakers we played was Ships and Sailors. It was a good time and so was playing volleyball together.

The night would eventually have to come to an end, but not before eating dinner together and participating in some service learning projects. All students helped make dog toys and care packages for kids that were less fortunate in the area. This provided Honors students with a sense of what it feels like to serve the community. Upon completion of the service projects there was a reflection session. During the session everybody discussed why we did those particular service projects and what we learned as a result of completing them. Everyone learned that they made a difference just by doing simple things. The event was now officially over, and everyone would have orientation in the morning, but the Honors Experience turned out to be a special day that would not be forgotten. The Honors Experience didn’t just introduce us to the program and new members; it introduced and welcomed us to our family away from home.

On September 24th 2015, Stockton University held its annual Convocation for the new freshmen. The speaker this year was Dr. Valerie Purdie-Vaughns. Upon arriving to this event, many of the freshmen filled up the entire Performing Arts Center. Many of the students did not even know what to expect coming from the event because professors told everyone to go due to its importance. After a short introduction by the Student Senate President and Professor Lenard, Dr. Purdie-Vaughns appeared on the stage in front of the large audience.
Dr. Purdie-Vaughns then began to talk about many different aspects included in the book Whistling Vivaldi by Claude Steele, which was the required reading material for all freshmen. Therefore, everyone would be able to gain a deeper understanding of the concepts mention in the book. Dr. Purdie-Vaughns began her discussion by explaining how everyone in the room can be stereotyped in some way. This means that every person can have a stereotype thrust upon to them. Furthermore, Dr. Purdie-Vaughns showed how people with the same birthdays feel a special connection even though they do not have anything else truly in common. She then related this to stereotypes and how people with a common stereotype can feel a deeper connection just because they are faced with the same stereotype as them.
Additionally, Dr. Purdie-Vaughns’ presentation also explained the concept of stereotype threat. In fact, she explained how stereotype threat is can be subconscious, as well as conscious. Therefore, people do not always have to be completely aware that they are undergoing some sort of stereotype threat. Lastly, Dr. Purdie-Vaughns also described how stereotypes can be local to a certain area. This means that a stereotype present in North America might not exist in a different part of the world.
Overall, Convocation provided a lot of insight on the topics presented in Whistling Vivaldi and stereotypes in general. Dr. Purdie-Vaughns gave an excellent presentation that intrigued the audience. I am glad I was able to attend this presentation because it was very insightful and made me even more aware about the stereotypes in our society and how they affect people.

On September 26th 2015, Stockton hosted its first and last home cross country meet of the 2015 season. Many spectators came to watch this event because it was the Osprey men’s and women’s only home meet this year. The match took place on the athletic fields on the north side of campus off of Pomona Road. When we arrived, many teams were warming up to prepare for the run. In total, fifteen men’s teams and seventeen women’s teams competed in the race.
The women’s teams ran first. At the start of the race, all seventeen of the women’s teams began the run across the field. The spectators stood close by to cheer on all of the teams. After the initial start of the race, the teams continued running the course. However, the spectators could not see the runners for most of the race because the course goes through the woods that surround Stockton. After about ten minutes, the women reappeared across the field for the middle section of the course. Once again, the spectators cheered on the runners as they then ran back into the woods. Then, another fifteen minutes passed before the runners sprinted to the finish line. One by one, all of the runners crossed the finish line with all of the spectators and coaches cheering on their teams. After the women’s race ceased, the men’s race then followed. The fifteen men’s teams ran through the same exact course with an equal level of enthusiasm from the spectators.
After the two races, it was time to announce the awards. Unfortunately, Stockton did not receive first place for either team. However, they still displayed an enormous amount of effort. The women’s team ended up placing in third, finishing only behind two schools, one from Pennsylvania and one from New York. Furthermore, two of the Stockton women runners placed in the top ten. The men’s team placed second, following only behind the school from Pennsylvania. Three of the runners on the Stockton men’s team received top ten finishes.
Overall, the Osprey Open was a great event showcasing the talents of the cross country athletes here at Stockton University. Even though our teams did not receive first place, there was still very impressive finishes for both the men and the women. All of the runners that participated in the race exhibited vast amounts of effort and showed how great the athletics here at Stockton can be.

Way back on September 15, 2015, I participated in my first tabling event. Tabling is essentially setting up a table in a popular location and grabbing people’s attention. The purpose of this event was to recruit blood donors for a blood drive that occurred over the course of the next two days. Two other honors students and great friends of mine, Jake G. and Anthony G., accompanied me in this event which proved to be both more fun and more successful than we had pictured it to be.
Our goal with tabling was to promote the blood drive and encourage people to sign up and donate. Dr. Kosick, who ran the tabling, hopped to have 95 donors on each of the two days the drive took place. People on campus are busy, and no one will willingly come to ask about our cause. In order to gain donors we had to work on our public speaking skills and talk students and faculty into at least checking out our table. If they were willing to donate, which many were, we explained to them the height and weight requirements needed to donate and other information about time and locations. Another successful tactic for promoting the blood drive was to walk around all of the cafeteria tables asking people to sign up and donate. If the tables were vacant we left a flyer on it for the next person(s) to use the table to see. We didn’t end up quite reaching our goal of 95 per day, but we gathered almost a full list for one day and about half for the next day.
This experience benefitted us as volunteers while helping the blood drive. We practiced and gained experience with public speaking. Approaching people isn’t always easy, especially when you’re trying to get something out of them. It take a skillful rhetoric to persuade someone who is undecided to make them sign up. However, it was all for a good cause. Donating blood can help many people with various need and conditions. One surprising fact is that donating blood is actually beneficial to the health of the donor. By giving blood the risk of heart disease. They are far less likely to experience a heart attack and the risk of any other type of cardiovascular problem is decreased by about a third. The theory, according to studies by researchers of the American Journal of Epidemiology, is “that iron has a significant impact on atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. When you give blood you are removing 225 to 250 milligrams of iron from your system, thus cutting your risk of heart disease.” There are also the more obvious benefits of helping those in need of donated blood.

Books Without Borders is a club at Stockton that I am currently committed to. This club takes on the simple idea of providing libraries in need with the recycled literature we collect from donors. The clubs current goal is to fill a massive shipping crate to the brim with boxes of books to be shipped to libraries that require them, essentially in a foreign country. The jobs of club members varies from raising awareness of those who are not fortunate enough to access a plethora of books in their libraries to organizing donated books into categories, such as biology, chemistry, children’s books, novels etc. Donations need to be organized in these categories for ease of shipping, economic use of space in the shipping container, and to make sure people get the right categories of books.
I was introduced to the club at Day of Service 2015 where our president had volunteers organizing books into categories in such a way as I previously described. However, we also were featured as a club in a more recent event called Make a Difference Day. This day was compiled with multiple organizations doing hands on volunteer service. On this day we accomplished the organization of books that were causing donation boxes to overflow. After they were organized we trucked them to the shipping crate where we then organized the books in the crate and added our new boxes for the day.
This is a great organization with friendly people who put in effort towards helping others and making our club a family. We have movie nights, banquets, and are going to Philadelphia as a club to bond this coming Saturday. During our meetings every Tuesday we discuss events such as this, new ideas for fundraisers, and our ultimate goal of shipping out the books. This club also provides me with extracurricular activities to counter the boring time off that accumulates on campus and as a source of bonding with new and current friends.