psychology – Houghton STAR

Not many people know that I come from a long line of men and women with depression and suicidal attitudes, including two suicides within my lifetime. In fact, my uncle killed himself the month before I came to Houghton. Firsthand, between high school and college, I have experienced the mind and body numbing effects of depression on my body, my mind, and my soul. As you can imagine, I have spent many hours wondering about my family history, my legacy of mental illness. Now, recently becoming engaged to be married, the fear that I will pass on such a legacy to my future children is crippling. Can there truly be nothing new under the sun? Are we doomed to struggle under the difficulties of our parents, and their parents before them?

Photo by: Anthony Burdo

I have found my comfort in psychology. To those of you not familiar to the discipline, that may sound as though I have found comfort by embracing the cold sterility of scientific reasoning and the dissociation from emotional expression. Quite the opposite in my case.

Echoed throughout all psychology courses and sub-disciplines, students are taught the complex relationship between nature and nurture, which was debated long before psychologists first began questioning this relationship. Are we just a product of our circumstances, our culture, our family and friends, or are we just

pre-programmed by a script of code by a genetic instruction manuals? The simple fact is both nature and nurture are critical to our lives, and they are so intertwined in their effects that is impossible to trace an element about ourselves to one locus point.

Yes, depression seems to run as a swath through the genetic code, but as I realized over my very depression-wrought sophomore year, there is more than genetics involved in the severity of depression in a person’s life. In my extended family, alcohol is a large environmental factor that has systematically ruined many lives. I don’t mean drinking alcohol in moderation is inherently corrupting or evil. However, drinking was, and still is used by large portions of my extended family as an escape, one that they use daily. My uncle was always depressed, but it was when he was drunk that his suicidal thoughts became so severe that he enacted them. He was drunk on the night he shot himself. My grandmother was reduced to a husk of her former self by her alcoholism, which destroyed the relationship my mother wished to have with her in her teenage years. This is why my mother abstains from all alcohol, and why I have determined never to drink as an escape. Alcohol lowers inhibition and lets the chilling claws of depression sink in.

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The failings in family’s legacy also taught me something else important in my battle with depression: the dangers of societal withdrawal. My uncle lived alone in a two story house, my grandmother spent a great deal of time away from her children and husband even within her own house, and my great-uncle’s body wasn’t discovered in his trailer until days after he killed himself. I’m not saying a romantic and/or sexual relationship combats depression (though I believe a healthy one may), it is making connections to even one friend that can act as a lifeline in particularly low times. My girlfriend was my lifeline during my sophomore year, but I learned the value of having many lifelines by finding friends who truly cared about my well-being. Houghton is one of the best places to find those connections, and I urge you to seek them out.

My legacy has left me with a lifelong struggle of depression, but it has taught me what exacerbates depression, such as alcoholism, and cutting off social and familial ties. We are not resigned to the same fate as our generations before us. We can learn from our legacies and fix both our own lives, and those of our children even if we can never solve the entire problem. This is what I seek to do, and I hope you all do as well, whether the topic relates to depression, abuse, spirituality, or sexuality.

Kevin is a senior majoring in psychology and writing.

Last weekend, roughly 80 students from multiple colleges presented on various fields of study at the Penn York Undergraduate Research Conference, hosted by Houghton College. Michael Klausner, director of social sciences program and associate professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh, said “The tone, presentations, attendance, and keynote speaker were all first rate.”

According to Laurie Dashnau, Houghton professor of writing and conference director, on Saturday approximately eighty students participated altogether from Houghton College, Hilbert College, St. Bonaventure University, Alfred University, the University of Pitt-Bradford, and the University of Pitt-Titusville.

Students had the opportunity to present their original pieces of work through oral and poster presentations in the subjects of physics, psychology, biology, chemistry, computer science, writing, linguistics, and history. Dashnau said the conference “affirms the high-quality of research students are doing” all while giving the students confidence and practice while sharing their information with professors and classmates.

Laura Johnson, a sophomore, gave a presentation titled “Caring for Caregivers: A Different Side of Alzheimer’s” in writing. “Conferences like this are important for scholastic growth,” Johnson said. “It allowed me to gain experience from presenting in front of an academic group of people that I don’t necessarily know, people who believe different things from me, and people who are trained to think thoughtfully.”

A group of students also participated with a presentation from the Science department. Sylvia Morrow, senior, gave a poster presentation titled, “A Study of Weak Magnetic Focusing” in physics. “Many of the presentations I have done in the past have been for people who are in physics,” Morrow said. “So it was interesting to have the opportunity to talk about my research with people who are not a part of that community.”

Kayla Miller and Olivia Morse, sophomores, gave a poster presentation on the “Relationship between Greenhouse Gases and Changes in Altitude.” Morse said, “The most valuable part of this experience was learning how to create a scientific poster that was visually appealing, concise, and informative.” While Miller said, “It took a while to put it in poster format. It was certainly busy trying to do it on top of homework for regular classes.”

A considerable amount of time was spent by each student preparing for this conference, not only in practicing to present their material, but also the amount of research for each paper and poster. Rebekah Kimble, senior, gave a presentation on “Martin Luther: Supporters and Detractors among the German Princes” in history. She spent a considerable amount of time writing and researching to prepare for the conference. Kimble said, “I gave a fifteen-minute oral presentation. I read it over a few times both to practice for the presentation and to reacquaint myself with the material.”

Jacob Hertzler, sophomore, gave a presentation in computer science titled, “Overlapping Community Detection in Dynamic Networks.” Hertzler said the overall work came from this summer “which totaled about six weeks worth along with about 8 months of prep on the topic over the school year last year.”

Morse said it was a great experience to present alongside other Houghton College students and other students from different colleges. Some of the presenting students also had some stories to tell about other presentations they attended. Johnson attended a presentation where a young man spoke about entomology, which is the consumption of insects for a main food source. She said, “He brought in cookies made with chocolate dipped crickets, along with cricket and mealworm quinoa for everyone to try. And it wasn’t half bad.”