Author: Bjorn Webb

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Campus News Sports

Weekly Sports Update

The Houghton Women’s Volleyball team started off their conference play this past week with a win against Utica College taking the match 3-0 and a loss against Steven’s Institute of Technology with a score of 0-3.  This past Tuesday, they faced off against St. John Fisher College and after forcing a 5th set they came up just short ending the night with a 2-3 loss.  Last year the Houghton Women’s Volleyball team ended 5th in the Empire 8 with an overall record of 4-4 in conference play.  The women’s team looks to improve upon last year’s results and make it to the post season tournament this year by being in the top 4 in their conference.  The team also defeated Alfred State College by a score of 3-1 to improve their record to 7-9 overall on the year.

During the Steven’s Tech. match on last Saturday Senior Erica Barnes reached and surpassed the 1,000 digs milestone.  Erica recorded 90 digs as a freshman, 422 as a sophomore, 331 as a junior, and through the first 15 matches of the year she has 174 digs.  “I’m just glad I could contribute to my team in whatever way they need me…I’m extremely thankful for Coach Cole and the opportunities that she gave me to be on the court.” stated Erica.  She also said how grateful she is and how special this milestone was that she was able to reach it while playing alongside lifelong friends.  Senior teammate Anna Coryell reached a milestone of her own the week before by surpassing 3,000 assists in her career at Houghton College.

They take the court again this weekend at D’Youville College Friday night and at home on Saturday against SUNY Geneseo at 7pm in the Nielsen Physical Education Center.

The Houghton College Women’s Tennis team also saw some important play this past week in the Empire 8 conference.  They played Utica College on Saturday, September 23 and dominated with an 8-1 victory.  Kaylee Jentsch fought hard for the sweep at singles against Utica by winning her match in a tie-breaker.  After losing the first set 2-6 Jentsch fought back to earn the win in the second set 6-2 and used this momentum to seal off the match with a close 10-8 win in the tiebreaker.  In the 2nd set and tiebreaker Jentsch found success using her favorite shots and by implementing her favorite strategy.  She used the drop shot to lure in her opponent and the lob shot to put the point away.  “The strong win over Utica gives us good momentum for our last 3 E8 matches, which are all critical to us making the championships,” said Jentsch when reflecting on the match.

This win brings their conference record to 2-3 on the year.  The women’s team ended last year’s season with a 3-5 record in the empire 8 conference.  They finished tied for 5th place in the conference last year and look to advance this year to the conference championships by breaking into the top 4.  “With Alfred, Elmira, and Hartwick left on our schedule for conference play I know we can compete for and earn a spot in the top 4 this year.” said Captain Jacqi Lewis.

The women’s tennis team also defeated SUNY Brockport in a close 5-4 match on Friday the 22nd.  Their overall record comes to an impressive 4-3 on the year.

The Men’s and Women’s Cross Country teams saw success this past week with both teams being recognized with an athlete receiving NCCAA Division 1 National Cross Country Student-Athletes of the week.  Sophomore Tyler Deuschle for the men’s team finished 27th at the Harry F. Anderson Invitational at Robert’s Wesleyan College with a time of 28:01.  Deuschle led the charge for the Highlanders to earn 7th place out of 21 teams in the 8k race.  Sophomore Shelby Langlois lead the women’s team to a 10th place finish out of 20 teams in their 5k race at the same invitational.

The Cross Country teams see action again on October 7 at 11am on the Field of Dreams in Houghton, NY.  Houghton College hosts the Highlander Invitational, which is the NCAA Atlantic Regional Preview.  The NCAA Atlantic Regional Championships will be held at Houghton on November 11th.

The men’s soccer team split on the week with a commanding 5-1 win over Hilbert College and a 1-3 conference loss to the Sage Colleges.  Freshmen Noah Ewing and Julius Klohr both notched their first career goals as highlanders and sophomore Ben DiCrasto had his first hatrick in their game against Hilbert to lift the Highlanders.  The men’s soccer team will see action this week against conference rival Steven’s Institute of Technology on Saturday the 30th.

The women’s soccer team started their conference play this week with a tough road loss to a tough St. John Fisher squad 0-1.  They also faced a tough University of Rochester team on the road and came away with a 0-2 defeat.  The women’s soccer team squares up against Utica College on Saturday and Penn State Behrend University on Tuesday, October 3.

After starting 3-0 the women’s field hockey team lost 4 straight.  They got back on track this past week with a commanding 7-1 win over Wells College.  This win puts them at 4-4 on the year.  They will face off against Hartwick University on Saturday in an important conference game and again on Tuesday, October 3 against SUNY Oneonta.

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Campus News

New Majors See Success

Courtesy of hcap.artstor.org

Houghton College’s mission statement states that Houghton College seeks to prepare students for the changing world of the twenty-first century.  The Director of Admission, Ryan Spear  said, “In order to do this we need to ensure that our existing programs go through a careful review process and any new programs are considered thoughtfully.”  In just this past year Houghton College has added Data Science, Music Industry, and Sport, Recreation and Wellness Management as majors. In  May, Justin Bullard walked at graduation as Houghton College’s first student to earn their degree in Inclusive Adolescent Education, which was recently added as well.  Engineering will be another major added in the next few years. . Jack Connell, Dean of the College and Vice President of Academic Affairs, stated that Houghton College is currently waiting to hear back from New York State regarding the approval of Engineering. This will determine whether the program will be offered in the Fall of 2017, or in the Fall of 2018.

Spear  sees  these new majors as an opportunity to attract more students and provide desired programs Spear stated, “It is important that Houghton College as an institution walks the fine line between offering programs in line with the needs of the world and the demands of the student without risking chasing after ’fad’ programs, like forensic science or video-game design.  There is nothing wrong with those programs, but often these programs often can be little more than gimmicks to attract students and lack necessary substance.”  He referred to the “Houghton way” of offering new programs to consist of finding the best way to offer new programs that fit with the school’s mission of being a rigorously academic, Christian liberal-arts college and will sustain demand in  the foreseeable future.

In their first official year of approval, Houghton saw six students enroll in the data science program; three in sport, recreation and wellness management, and 11 in the music industry program.  In fact, the 11 students to enroll this year in music industry made this first year program the largest of the music programs being sought after by incoming students.  And despite  engineering still in the process of being approved, Houghton saw 12 students enroll this year with an interest in physics and possibly engineering.  This is the highest number in the past few years.  Inclusive adolescent education is a little farther along in the process.  Professor of education,  Sunshine Sullivan, said  “There have been many prospective students that I have spoken to that have responded positively in having inclusive adolescent education as an option here at Houghton.”

Nic Loew ’18   will be one of the first students with the opportunity to graduate with a data science degree.  He said, “Data is so much of life in today’s society. No matter one’s major or interest, whether Business, Biology, Athletics, Music, etc., there is a need to understand how to use and interpret data in the most productive way.”

As Houghton College looks to grow with the changing world,the addition of these new majors will prove to be a tenable strategy to  attract more students as well as providing students with the necessary knowledge and experience to “lead and labor as scholar-servants in a changing world,” as Houghton College’s mission statement states.

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Campus News

Data Science Works to Develop Major

The New York State Board of Education approved Houghton College to offer data science as a major in December, 2015. Since then, faculty have been hard at work developing the program into something that has experiential learning as a foundation for the program, as well as integration with various other academic disciplines. This semester Houghton’s first Data Science Consulting Group was in action using real data and analyzing it for a real client. Additionally, this summer Houghton will offer its first online data science course taught by Philip Martin, a data scientist for SumAll.org.

CDSA-Social-Media-Images_Google-Cover-PhotoThis Consulting Group will be a common component of the data science curriculum. Carmen McKell, President of Basemetrics Inc., said “the CDSA (Center for Data Science Analytics) is receiving about one request per week for future data consulting projects,” demonstrating that there is significant demand from organizations who want to get more value from their data. In the fall of 2016 she hopes to accept three of those requests. Through applications from students interested, there will be three student-run consulting teams.These teams will consist of a diverse team in order to help replicate the real-world work place.This semester’s team consisted of students from psychology, data science, mathematics, biochemistry, and communication majors.  This is to provide the consulting team with an atmosphere as close to real world situations as possible. The teams will have real deadlines and deliverables to present to the client. These consulting groups will be slightly different from what Houghton College has done in the past in the sense that students and faculty involved will receive a stipend for their work. These consulting teams have the chance to establish long-term relationships between students and clients that may lead to internships and future jobs. This has been shown in this year’s consulting group in which a couple of the students have been asked to continue research for the client throughout the summer.

As of April 19, 2016 there were 50 prospective students that have declared interest in Data Science at Houghton, 12 of which applied, and four that have committed to Houghton.  Ryan Spear, Director of Admission, expects the numbers to be much better by May 1. Also, Spear stated, “For a program that is new, not just to Houghton, but to higher education in general, it is very encouraging to see this kind of demand within the first year of the major being approved.” There are about three current students that have declared their major as Data Science along with about six confirmed minors in Data Science. The current students majoring in Data Science only consist of current sophomores and first year students because juniors and seniors do not have the ability to major in Data Science given time constraints and course requirements. There is expected growth in numbers of students involved for next year given that the major was only approved four months ago and Houghton College is one of the first liberal arts colleges in the country to offer an undergraduate degree in data science. “Houghton College is the first Christian liberal arts college to offer any sort of degree in data science,” said McKell.This is projected to be the largest growing job field in the United States.This is a monumental step for Houghton College, because there is an 18.7% projected increase in data scientist jobs between 2010 and 2020.

 

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Campus News

HSE Responds to Gamers’ Request

Houghton Student Enterprises (HSE) held its first annual League of Legends tournament on Saturday, November 21.  There were 20 students involved in this event, 16 of whom were present and four who played from a separate location. The event was a team tournament where students teamed up in teams of five to compete in a 5v5 double-elimination tournament.

Screen Shot 2015-12-10 at 11.17.27 AMTwo of the teams that competed were communicating through earpieces to teammates that were unable to attend the tournament due to technical difficulties and distance.  Ryan Bowers ‘19, a competitor in this tournament, stated that he loved the location of Big Al’s, because of the easy access to food, refreshments, and the accessibility for spectators to watch and cheer on the gamers as they competed and strategized.  Justin Livergood ‘18, another competitor, stated that he liked the location because the teams were separated by appropriate distances so that the other teams would not be able to hear them strategizing before and during the match.
HSE is planning to continue this event next year, making it an annual activity.  HSE plans on making next year’s tournament a Riot, the company that made League of Legends. sanctioned tournament so they will provide in-game prizes.  HSE anticipates that the event will grow next year,  as they hope to include the gamers of the Houghton community, as well as more students. Bowers and Livergood both expressed they thought this tournament  “should definitely be held again.”