Tag: student

Categories
Stories In Focus

Rachel Wells

By Anna Catherman ('24)

Senior Rachel Wells took Transitions this Fall 2023 semester. 

Wells came to Houghton from New York City, where she’d attended The King’s College for two years. When King’s shuddered due to financial woes, Houghton offered a generous teach out program, making it a clear choice. But it still wasn’t easy for Wells to start over in a new place for the second time in three years.

Wells grew up in suburban Florida—vastly different from both New York City and Houghton. 

She didn’t tour King’s, and had only spent half a day in New York City before moving there.

Wells said that her new life “did not feel real for a very long time.”

Thrust into not only starting classes, Wells also had to learn how to grocery shop, cook, and make friends in a place where she knew no one. She contracted COVID-19 in her first month and had to spend time in isolation, which worsened her homesickness. But she pushed through, and in time, grew to enjoy living within walking distance of Battery Park and its views of the Statue of Liberty.

By her second year, Wells said she found she “actually love[d] living in the city.”

Highlights included her college professors, classmates, prayer group, babysitting, and studying at the city’s many coffee shops. She enjoyed King’s unique culture of debate and friendly competition, tutoring her housemates to win a writing contest. It was the only contest the House of Queen Elizabeth won in her time there.

However, the year was fraught with tension as King’s financial woes slowly became public. 

Zoom calls with executives became routine. The interim president, Steven French, said that more money was needed to finish the semester. Students began getting rent notices for their college housing. Yet through May 2023, the school claimed no intention to close.

Then King’s announced no classes would be taught in the 2023-2024 school year. 

Forced to transfer somewhere else, Wells “eventually came around to the idea of Houghton.” Many of Wells’ family members have attended Houghton University.

Wells misses the iced oat milk lattes at Olive’s, her favorite coffee shop; her babysitting job; and her former professors and classmates. But she’s found new people —and drink orders—at Houghton. 

Wells really enjoys chapels. “Hot take, I guess?” she chuckled, acknowledging that many students don’t feel the same way.

And Wells has had a blast at Houghton’s events, including intramural water polo. 

Wells hopes to return to New York City from time to time to visit friends, although she plans to move home to Florida after graduation. There, she wants to teach alongside her high school English teacher. 

Ultimately? She’d like to be Dr. Wells. 

She asks herself, “should you be saying that right now because you’re an undergraduate?” But she still dreams. ★

Categories
Stories In Focus

A Sodexo Story: Pam Wilkinson

Since the fall of 2009, Pam Wilkinson has worked as a Sodexo greeter in the dining hall where she scans ID cards for meals, does other miscellaneous jobs when needed, and gets to interact with Houghton faculty, students, and other community members.

Pam first became affiliated with Houghton when she attended one of the college’s programs at its West Seneca satellite campus in the early 1980s.  She graduated with an associate degree and remembers her time with “fond memories.”  Shortly after graduating, Pam met her husband and became a stay-at-home mom to their three children.

PamRGBIn 2006 Pam reconnected with Houghton when her daughter, Candace, attended as a student from 2006-2010.  At this time she was not working and since her children were all beginning to leave home, she decided she “wanted something to do with [her] time”.  She would often visit her daughter while she was a student at Houghton and began thinking, “I would like to work here”.  Following her daughter’s encouragement, Pam decided to go ahead apply at the dining hall. She wasn’t aware that a food service ran the dining hall so she was told to go online and apply.  After she applied, Pam ended up earning the position as a greeter in the dining hall. While this was good news, Pam was still nervous, “I haven’t been in the workforce since the early ‘80s, so I was nervous” she said.

Although she has a 40 minute commute each day from Delevan, Pam loves her job and the college atmosphere.  “The students are what I love most about Houghton. They are so friendly and so full of energy,” said Pam, who especially enjoys having conversations with students throughout the day. “The faculty and staff are also very friendly,” said Pam.  Pam’s most memorable experience occurred when she came into work on her birthday and found three huge birthday balloons at her register, “I have never seen such huge balloons.  To this day I don’t know who they were from.  I will always remember that!  That really made my day!”

Pam doesn’t quite know what is in store for her in the future, but she does know that she wants to continue her work here at Houghton.  She and her husband are grandparents to one twenty-one month old grandson and a granddaughter on the way this coming July.  During her time off, Pam enjoys hobbies like crocheting, painting, quilting, decorating, and shopping.  She also enjoys reading, walking her dog, and watching Jane Austen and Bible movies.  Pam can always been seen at the top of the dining hall stairs, wearing a smile, ready to greet everyone entering the our dining hall.

Categories
News

Conversations About Race Continue

In response to the “Shades of Black” incident that took place in February, and in order to further campuswide education on the topic of race, Student Life and Spiritual Life will be hosting several dinner discussion panels before the end of the semester to continue the conversation on race at Houghton. According to Rob Pool,vice president of student life, the intent behind the events is for students to come to a fuller understanding of “where people are coming from individually” in order to help “shape a better community picture” on Houghton’s campus.

Screen Shot 2014-03-01 at 12.06.30 PMMike Jordan, dean of the chapel, stated that while it would be difficult to coordinate too many events before the end of the semester, “we’d like events to continue into the fall.” Jordan also said that he was “working hard to bring in speakers to chapel next year who will be able to speak to the realities that divide white Christians and Christians of color.”

According to the Community Covenant, which all students sign, the Houghton community pledges to “seek to be a community of inclusion… [and] joyfully celebrate one another, rejoicing in our uniqueness, diversity, environment, heritage and calling.” The Covenant also condemns “discrimination and prejudice (whether of race, gender, ethnicity or socioeconomic class).”

After the Shades of Black display, which showcased the stories of African and African-American students of varied backgrounds, was vandalized in February, Student Life took action to identify the person responsible—an alum of Houghton. That evening, Greg Bish, Director of Student Programs, gathered students who had been involved in planning and who were featured in the display for a discussion. One of the key pieces of information that emerged from this dialogue, according to Pool, was that “those who were victimized should not be the ones tapped to help solve or address it” but that “it really needed to be an institutional response.” The diversity events that will be occurring are a direct response to those prior events/

Pool stated that while it is “the student’s responsibility to learn, to grow, to discuss, to grow and to change,” the college has “a major role” in planning events and providing resources and forums at which education on race-related topics can occur. Jordan echoed that concern, stating that while the college is seeking to be “very open to student input, especially the input of students of color,” the college is simultaneously trying to avoid making students feel “if anything’s going to get done, they have to do it”. Spiritual Life’s role in this process should extremely important as well, because “Making room for each other, listening to each other, not jumping to conclusions, finding ways to live peaceably together–these are essential [Gospel] things”, Jordan said.

The defacing of the Shades of Black was described by Pool as “eye-opening” to a “lack of understanding among some of our students,” as the person responsible was an “an outgrowth of the experience here in this community” while other students responded with “gross ignorance” to the fact of the privilege white students experience.

Jordan stated that one of the important things he learned was “how very important it is to mourn with those who mourn.” Jordan also said that that when someone has been deeply hurt “the Gospel doesn’t call us to defend ourselves, nor to lecture the person about why their pain is illegitimate.” As a Christian liberal arts college, it is important that we have continue to explore “each other’s stories about what the Gospel does for us; and students from a dominant white culture need to listen attentively to the stories of non-white Christians even when it’s a bit jarring to them,” Jordan said.

For those not personally affected by the incident but who condemned it and the attitudes who produced it, Pool recommended continuing to speak out in support of their fellow students who were hurt. He commended those who responded with “with genuine, visible expressions of support” for their fellow students and friends after the defacing of the Shades of Black display. Jordan called for bravery on the part of white students who may have been “reluctant or unwilling to see if they actually had something to learn from the experience,” saying that the Houghton community needs to have “the humility to listen to others’ pain and examine our own hearts.”

According to Pool, the freshman class this year has the highest percentage of racially diverse students in Houghton’s history; at present, the incoming first year class for the fall is set to surpass that record.

 

Categories
News

HOPE Office Launched for Student Volunteers

After a half semester of planning, an official HOPE office has been opened in the campus center basement for student assistance. According to Hanna Kahler and Jina Libby, juniors both involved in the formation of the office, HOPE aims to both track student volunteer service and connect students with new volunteer opportunities in the area.

Greg Bish, director of student programs, maintains that the initiation of a HOPE office is a continuation of a strong tradition of service at the college. “There have been variations of the HOPE office through the years. The HOPE office as we’re currently experiencing it started just this year. If you look at service, service goes all the way back to Willard J. Houghton,” he said.

Courtesy of voiceseducation.org
Courtesy of voiceseducation.org

One of the current projects of the HOPE office has been the use of “Impact Cards” to quantify student involvement in the community as volunteers. Said Bish, “It’s an effort to do some data-gathering and not just anecdotally say our students do service. We do know they do service, but we’re just trying to find a way to collect information about what they’re doing.” The cards, which work in a way similar to timecards, may be filled out on a weekly basis and may include hours from multiple volunteer projects.

Initial response to Impact Cards has been slow. “[The cards have] been trickling in,” said Bish. “I wouldn’t say there’s been a huge overflow yet. We’ve not gotten hundreds back by any means, but we’re in the early stages.” Kahler added that the office has recorded about 46 ½ volunteer hours from students via Impact Cards. “To me, that is satisfactory. Not as amazing as I would want, but it’s satisfactory,” added Libby. She explained that while the recorded hours may be low, the depth of student volunteering is notably higher. “If you take the JET program alone, there are approximately 20 students going down every Saturday, and that’s six hours a Saturday, eight Saturdays. We’re talking over 700 hours,” she explained.

Impact Cards, while a measure of student volunteering for the college, also aim to be a motivator for current volunteers and those interested in volunteering. “On an individual level, we’re trying to encourage volunteer service in the community, so when people get to 25 hours, we want to … recognize that somehow,” explained Kahler.

Also part of the office’s work is connecting students with potential volunteer opportunities. Through connections with the Southern Tier Regional Volunteer Center, a database that lists opportunities between Jamestown and Binghamton, the office is able to search a pool of current needs for volunteers in the Southern Tier area and pass them on to students with specific volunteer interests.

Locally, the office has worked on establishing volunteer connections with Wellspring Ministries in Belfast, NY; Absolut Care, a nursing and rehabilitation center in Houghton, NY; and the Powerhouse Youth Center in Fillmore, NY. One of Kahler’s and Libby’s current tasks is to publicize a project over spring break which would call for student volunteers for Wellspring Ministries. Another task is to involve student-run clubs and honor societies in leading activities for youth at the Powerhouse center. Explained Bish, “We would ask different clubs and organizations to sign up … and do something related to [their] club. If it’s the French Club, they could be making crepes. If it’s Sigma Zeta, they could be doing a science experiment. Basically, [we’re] trying to get clubs and organizations, or RAs and floors, to … take one day and go volunteer at the after-school program and provide some kind of activity…”

As for long-term projects, Kahler hopes to better integrate volunteer service with classroom instruction. “We’re also doing a faculty survey to see how much service learning there is in the classrooms. It’s something recently developed, so it’s not going to be sent out for a while,” she said. Both she and Libby stressed the importance of service at Houghton. “Looking at it from a Christian perspective, it’s one of our callings, as a Christian, to serve,” said Libby.

Categories
Stories In Focus

Caffeinated Creative Studios: For Your Design Fix

The half coffee cup of the “Caffeinated Creative Studios” (CCS) logo has popped up on most of the campus’s bulletin boards and cafeteria table inserts this semester.

The six students who form the CCS team have designed posters, logos, e-mail ads, and banners. They’re regularly asked, “Do you get paid for this?” Nope. “Do you receive course credit?” We may in the future, but not this semester. “So you’re just super nice?”

Courtesy of facebook.com
Courtesy of facebook.com

They really are nice, but that’s not their sole motivation for working on designs and ads.

Yinka Araromi and Josh Duttweiler, members of the CCS team, lounged on the grey couches in the Chamberlain Center Atrium. They’d both come from working in the Mac lab.

Duttweiler shared, “We started Caffeinated because we wanted to get some real world experience with design. We knew that clubs and organizations on campus were looking for advertisements, and we knew we wanted to get involved.”

The CCS team consists of Yinka Araromi, Josh Duttweiler, Nicole Mason, Amy Coon, Alex Hood, and Morgan Loghry. They are each communication and art majors who are interested in graphic design and hope to potentially work in professional design in the future.

Araromi said, “I hope this is kind of good practice for me to understand how this kind of business works.” He looked at Duttweiler, laughed, and said,  “I pretty much talk about it every day. I don’t know about Josh, but I talk about it every day. It seems to come up at least once a day.”

Duttweiler said this service is available to Houghton College student organizations, academic departments, and residence life staff. People can find them on Facebook and start their design requests by clicking on the link: http://bit.ly/13SsXxE.

Araromi said, “I usually check when the jobs come in every day. I see who of us is maybe the least busy and then I ask them first. Then if they can’t do it, I’ll send it to the next person. We then send the designs to each other to kind of like critique. We don’t send anything out until most of us are okay with it.”

Duttweiler described this collaborative process, saying, “The clients have something they envision. And then it’s what they envision and what you envision and the design, and what’s the best way to communicate. So there’s a lot of back and forth, making sure everyone is happy.”

Once a month the CCS team meets to plan and dream. Duttweiler grinned and said, “There’s coffee!” “Josh brings the Keurig,” said Araromi, “I bring the snacks. Always chips and dip and chocolate.” “We sit around in the presentation room close to the computers,” said Duttweiler. “And I feel like half of it is kind of socializing, and half it is kind of business,” said Araromi.

Duttweiler also shared the story of CCS’s name. He said, “We spent months putting together lists of names. Kind of like the idea of caffeine, you know energy and excitement, and it’s kind of a cool thing, coffee, especially at college. And then creative studios – it all fit.” Araromi added, “‘Caffeinated’ just felt appropriate for students.” He grinned. “We do consume a lot of caffeinated beverages.”

This semester, CCS has been overwhelmed by the positive response they’ve received. Duttweiler said, “We got a lot more interest than we expected originally. We’re glad that people can trust us and want us.” Araromi and Duttweiler shared that this support gives them confidence that CCS can continue into the future. Araromi said, “It’s meeting a kind of need at the college.”

“Caffeinated was created to inspire, train, inform and empower students,” said Araromi. “It’s exciting.”

Categories
Stories In Focus

Behind the Scenes: Sodexo Student Supervisor, Ed Taylor

Ask any student worker in the Houghton Cafeteria about Ed Taylor and you will probably hear words like ‘dedicated,’ ‘humble,’ ‘supportive,’ and ‘hard working’ used to describe him. After working in the cafeteria for over 30 years, Ed Taylor is highly respected and looked up to by many.

Ed_Taylor“Working for Ed is like working for a favorite uncle. You know that he expects you to work hard, but you also know that he won’t let the job get too hard for you, and if you mess up, he’ll be right there to help you out,” explained senior, Benjamin Hardy.

Though many may not know of him, the students who work for Taylor speak very highly of him. Taylor currently works with Sodexo as the Student Supervisor, alongside his wife, Tracy Taylor, who also works in the Houghton Cafeteria. Taylor primarily works behind the scenes, though occasionally you can spot him around the cafeteria helping wherever he is needed and never failing to say hello to the students who pass him.

Becoming the Student Supervisor has allowed Taylor to create strong relationships with students and be a role model for them. When talking with Taylor in the cafeteria, no matter the question, he always related his answers about the students and how they are a big impact on his career. “That’s the only reason I’m still here, I like working with the college kids. I have fun,” said Taylor.

“He loves his student workers and the students who come up to eat in the cafeteria for four years of their life, and that care is very obvious.” said Hardy. This care was evident as Taylor and I talked alongside his co-workers, taking time out of his short lunch break.

Ed Taylor graduated from Houghton College in 1982 with a degree in math education. He soon realized teaching was not for him after spending a semester student teaching, which led to his career with Houghton College. He worked in the cafeteria through all four years as a Houghton student and continued to do so upon graduation. From 1982 to 1985 Pioneer Dining Services sent Taylor to work at other colleges but he was able to find his way back to Houghton and has not left since.

While working with Pioneer Taylor had many responsibilities making his workweek over sixty hours. After the switch from Pioneer to Sodexo, Taylor’s current job as Student Supervisor is more focused, giving him fewer responsibilities, allowing him to focus mainly on the students. He oversees and helps the student workers as well as other completing other jobs needing to be done in the cafeteria. “With Pioneer I did everything, now I’m just in charge of the students,” said Taylor, “It was definitely a big change but in the end it was better for me. ”

Dr. Anthony Petrillo, community member and friend of Taylor said of Taylor, “I think that’s why the students are attracted to working with him, he’s a Godly man and does his job well… He lives the statement: ‘To preach the gospel always and if necessary use words’,” said Petrillo.

Having spent many years in the Houghton Community Taylor discussed how he has seen the college change over the years. Taylor said, “It was like one big family, a lot more floor activities, and class activities. That’s something I think they can get back to.” Taylor expressed how he feels Houghton has stepped away from a tight knit community, especially with the building of the townhouses. The school has also grown in number since Taylor first came here, which he also felt has changed the feel of Houghton.

“He makes the cafeteria an inviting place for freshmen to work. He sets the mood and makes work fun,” said Hardy.

Taylor is someone who genuinely loves his job and has a positive outlook on life. When discussing a large pay cut he received to be able to continue working at Houghton after the switch from Pioneer to Sodexo, his response was simply, “It’s a benefit for me, now I get to work with my wife everyday.”