The freshman convocation for the graduating class of 2020 featured Ellen Forney, the illustrator who worked in partnership with Sherman Alexie to bring life into his book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. Upon entering, general consensus exhibited a mass of fatigued, stressed out, nearly lifeless bodies serving as an audience.
When Ms. Forney walked on stage, however, the usual dull lull of conversation halted. She looked interesting – very different from other presenters. Forney wasn’t dressed in business casual attire, and she did not sport a look of stern, condescending all-knowingness. Rather, she wore jeans, and she boasted an expression of appreciative wonder. She immediately became more relatable than every other presenter we’d seen so far. The second she opened her mouth to speak, she was no longer an adult that we were being forced to listen to. She morphed instantaneously into a fellow victim of pain, stress, and life in general. This was the person we wanted to listen to.
Forney talked about her struggles with bipolar disorder, and she poured her heart out on stage in the best way possible. She gave the entire freshman student body insight into her mind, and the life of Ellen Forney suddenly became a life we related to. Her success story became one we wanted to emulate. Forney unknowingly lifted thousands of tons off the shoulders of unsuspecting college students.
So, my fellow honors students, the freshman convocation is NOT as awful as you all may at first perceive. When dragging yourself out of your Netflix-induced stupor and trudging out your bedroom door to go to your honors event, hope you are lucky enough to hear from someone like Ellen Forney.

by Emily Calhoun

On November 11, 2016, I visited the Drawing Against Oblivion art installation.  It has been open and available to the public since September and ended on November 13, three days after I visited.  The art installation featured two floors full of hand-drawn portraits of various children affected by the Holocaust.  Each portrait was accompanied by a small description of the child featured, usually including the child’s name, if known, and how he or she was affected by the Holocaust.  Most of the children were sent to concentration camps.  Many of them died there.  Only a handful survived.  The coolest part of the installation, in my opinion, was the part called Writing Against Oblivion.  This part encouraged the visitors to the installation to take an envelope and write a short letter to one of the children featured in the installation.  The letters really allowed me to become personally involved in history and form a real connection with the children whose stories and pictures I spent an hour looking at.  I found Drawing Against Oblivion to be very moving.  Reading the personal stories of the various children featured in installation really helped me connect personally to their experiences.  I did my senior research project on the Holocaust, and in all the research I did for that project, I never connected with the experience as much as I did in the hour I spent at Drawing Against Oblivion.  I know that there is a documentary on the installation, and I hope to watch it soon and become even more connected.  I highly recommend a visit to Drawing Against Oblivion to anyone interested in any way.

by Emily Calhoun

The Animal Friendly Organization sponsored a private screening of Leonardo DiCaprio’s new documentary of Before the Flood on Tuesday, October 11, in the Campus Center Theater. Before the Flood tells the story of DiCaprio’s journey as the appointed United Nations Messenger of Peace. DiCaprio focused on the real crisis facing the world: climate change. The documentary provided evidence to show the realities of climate change. It also gave predictions of what the future will look like if we globally continue to live the damaging lives we currently live. Finally, it gave examples from around the world of how the crisis is currently being handled and how people are attempting to stop it. The documentary was followed by a brief question-and-answer period with a representative from the Defenders of Wildlife organization. The question-and-answer session was informative and truly got the audience engaged with the subject matter of the documentary. It also helped us gain a better understanding of the small changes we could make in our lives in order to help reverse climate change. I knew that I would enjoy this documentary, as one of my favorite things to do is watch documentaries on humanitarian issues. I was surprised, though, at how much the documentary really impacted me. As a result of this experience, I have stopped eating beef and am limiting my consumption of dairy products in order to reduce my impact on the planet.

Honor’s Olympics

    On Friday, November 18, Stockton’s Honors Program held the Honors Olympics in the I-wing gym. Upon entering the pizza filled gym, we were split into two teams and thrown onto the court for an intense game of knockout. The winner would be the team captain and choose their team. While I was knocked out after three rounds, it was an intense game. We crowned a victor, chose teams, and began.

    The first game was dodgeball. Foam balls were flying across the gymnasium and, in the end, my team won both rounds. We quickly moved on to volleyball with the score 3-0. We used a beach ball and mapped out the borders after much deliberation over the most appropriate bounds. They started with a classic basketball jump, and the other team got the first serve. The rules were simple — no out of bounds, no spiking. The rest was fair game. After thirty minutes of intense play, profanities, and dives we won, pushing us further into the lead.

    Finally, we moved onto the most intense game of all, the hulla hoop. Each team member held hands and attempted to get a hula hoop over their head, past their feet, and onto the next member. The team to drop the hoop on the floor first was the winner. We won the first round easily, however, we dropped the ball on the second, allowing team two their first victory. In the end, we were able to have a ton of fun and we won by a landslide.

-Eryn Swineford

Last Saturday, October 16, Stockton hosted the Boilermaker Jazz Band in the Performing Arts Center. Their show, “When Swing Was King,” was comprised of famous jazz musician Benny Goodman’s greatest hits. Opening with The Jersey Bounce, and closing with perhaps Goodman’s most famous song, Sing, Sing, Sing, the Boilermaker Jazz Band put on a wonderful concert.
Although the PAC wasn’t packed, it was clear that everyone in the audience really enjoyed the performance. Despite the old age and limited mobility of most of the concert-goers, nearly everyone clapped and gave a standing ovation when the band had finished playing. Apart from one kid who looked to be around 7 or 8 years old, my girlfriend and I seemed to be the youngest attendees (you could get a pretty good estimate of how many people were there by counting the piles of walkers left at each entrance). Based on age, I would wager that to most of the audience, the music wasn’t new. The songs the band performed were the songs they grew up with- my generation’s equivalent of Justin Bieber or Katy Perry’s latest hits. However, even as someone who enjoys and listens to jazz, I only recognized a few songs out of both sets the band played.
I love going to jazz concerts. In addition to discovering new music to listen to (and to learn how to play), I enjoy trying to understand the context of songs: what was happening in the world when they were written, and how these goings-on made people feel. Jazz, I believe, is unique in the way that it allows musicians to express emotion. Improvisation, a staple of the genre, allows artists to “play how they feel.” Although improv dates back to the classical era and continues into modern music, it plays a more central role in jazz that isn’t achievable in other genres. I’m fascinated by the thoughts and stories that went into writing each song.
I really enjoyed the concert, and hope the Boilermaker Jazz Band will be back at Stockton soon!

Kate Doherty

Blog 3: Reindeer Games

            On November 19, 2016, the honors program hosted the first annual Run Run Rudolph 5k. For the event, runners donated to participate in the run. The money raised is going to be donated to a local family to help them buy presents and have a great Christmas. My role in the event was registrar. I manned the registration table and made sure each runner signed a waiver and handed in their donation. We sold reindeer antlers and jingle bells as well as ribbons to support the cause further. A trail around the lake was marked and other volunteers held signs and encouraged the runners to keep going. After the event, all of the volunteers participated in a discussion session to reflect on the event and make suggestions for next year.

I think that the event had a lot of potential. For a first annual event, I think it was very well organized. We had plenty of volunteers to help set up the Christmas decorations and to man the trail. The only thing that really needed improvement on was the amount of people who participated. In future years, I think it would be beneficial to collect money for participation ahead of time instead of just providing a preregister form. This might encourage more turnout for the event on the day of. Otherwise, the money would have already been donated and overall, more money would be collected for the great cause. I am excited to promote this event in future years and get more involved in helping at the event. Hopefully we have even more success in my next 3 years at Stockton.

I enjoyed going to this event even though I am not that into poetry. It was better than I had expected it to be. I found him to be pretty funny and since he was from New Jersey I was able to understand some of the references that he made. For example, he had a whole poem about how he had worked at Great Adventure on the Rolling Thunder ride and talked about this girl he met there who he was interested in. I grew up going to Great Adventure and have rode Rolling Thunder, so I liked being able to relate to that a little bit. He also had a few poems about fatherhood, he discussed his own childhood as well as his two daughters.
I also thought it was interesting how he had a poem about slaves. Gregory Pardlo had an interest in slave narratives, so he had read some of them and ended up making it into a poem. I never really thought about taking something that you were interested in reading and turning it into a poem. He also had other different ideas like this, such as his poem that was written as a description of a class which he thought would be interesting to teach. This idea came about from him having to write course descriptions. Overall, I was surprised that actually enjoyed it and it was a nice change to attend an event such as this.

At 6:30 p.m. on September 21, 2016 in the Campus Center Event Room, the Stockton students and faculty were provided with the experiential opportunity to listen to the guest speaker, Akhil Reed Amar, hosted by the Political Engagement Project/American Democracy Project, the Office of Service-Learning and the Office of the Provost. To provide some background, Mr. Amar is a professor and law and political science at Yale University and engages in many cases as well as writes for widely-known papers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. The session began with the distribution of a handheld Constitution book to all the individuals who attended and as the speaker came out, he introduced some general historical facts. A few of these include: The Declaration of Independence was penned on the Fourth of July, 1776 and National Constitution Day is on the Seventeenth of September, originally signed in 1787. These facts helped to open up the main session in which Constitutional rights and interpretations were discussed.

The Constitution is constantly being publicized to vote for or against it and there is partially a secular vision which is associated with it. In addition, as the values and morals of America continue to change, a concern is how strictly an American should abide by the laws of this document. However, in contrast, the British do not have a democratic constitution and their government seems to function in an orderly fashion which might suggest the possibility that the Constitution can be rendered useless if the same results are provided. The idea that there was a democracy revolution is fascinating in that the “big bang” of implementing such a document into the laws of the country began with America and then spread to Western Europe. Following this lecture in which the audience was supplied with an analysis on the importance of the Constitution, there was an opening for any questions.

An essential portion of this informational event was realizing that the foundation of Stockton University is built on the basis of the Constitution since Richard Stockton was one of the signers of the most important documents in American history. This connection which my school holds truly allows me to appreciate my school and education for enlightening with from a liberal arts perspective. In relation to the Debate Days and the Election which just passed, this dialogue highlighted the paper which America was built upon and how each of the presidential candidates was able to uphold these Constitutional rights through their platforms and campaigning. This session was entirely enjoyable on the basis that one was educated in preparation for the elections, as mentioned above, and was provided with an unbiased view on the Constitution. I would recommend this to any individual of any major who wishes to learn more about the history of America. Although this was a one-time event, similar organized dialogues constitute an expansion of information in the political science world. In summary, the Constitution was a document written once; however, its laws should be considered continuously throughout the days of America.

On Thursday, October 6th I attended the veteran’s monologue panel.  The panel consisted of approximately 12 students.  These students acted to convey the personal stories of veterans.  The students presented the stories rather than the veterans because it was thought that they would better evoke feelings from the audience as it enabled more of a connection to the ordinary, nonmilitary-involved viewer. At the beginning of the event, the student speakers were situated in the audience so that the they would blend in with the crowd, thus enhancing their relationship with the audience members so that they would appear to be an everyday student rather than someone who volunteered to regurgitate the stories of veterans. When it was time for the event to begin, the student panel walked up onstage, while still wearing their backpacks and carrying books making their presence relatable to the viewers.

Prior to speaking in front of an audience, students were assigned the task of interviewing a veteran and obtaining a story from them that they would be able to present.  Based on the veteran’s memories of war, the social environment; or milieu; of boot camp and of war in general is much different than that of everyday life.  One of the veteran’s stories explained how life truly began for him at boot camp as it was quite the, “cultural shock.” After re-entering civilian world, many of the veterans thought they would be able to move on past war and be joyous to be back but it appeared that life in the civilian world had been put on hold while everyone else moved on. At times many of the veterans would feel so alone in the world regardless of the number of people around them.   The veterans recollected how they had to change their initial moral beliefs upon entering the military.  One veteran explained how prior to being employed he was an atheist but, “Once something extreme happens, once you witness the horrors on the battlefield, you will pray to anyone and anything in hope that there is some greater force out there looking over you.”

Additionally, one of the veterans returned home after deployment and stated, “This isn’t the America that I fought for.” Before he left for the military, he remembers fighting for a country formed by the kindness of those who live in it but when he returned home he was only greeted with the hate and disrespect that citizens exhibited towards one another .  There is now doubt and mistrust everywhere and a lack of courage and compassion.  We rise and fall as one nation and, “Even though we are all unique in America,” the veteran mentioned, “That’s what makes us great.”