Travel has Begun!

Yes faithful readers...our Office is out on the road in full force!

Let's see...last week, Liz was in Kansas, Megan was in St. Louis, Linda was in Florida, and Sam was in Atlanta, GA. If you are interested, you can see where we will all be this Fall, by visiting the "On the Road" section of our website!

Travel is an exciting time in Admissions...It is a chance to reconnect with colleagues and friends that have the same territory as you. Like seeing an old friend from childhood, an Admissions Counselor can go for a year without seeing a fellow Counselor, and yet, can reconnect instantly without missing a beat. It's funny how much the alphabet plays a role in who you know best on the road. For the most part, Colleges are in alphabetical order at college fairs. Therefore I know very well the Counselors from Suffolk, Sterling, and Stevens, but it took a while to move down the alphabet and introduce myself To Josh at Lesley and Cathy at Curry! My friend Meghan who used to work here and now is at Endicott mentioend that it will be hard getting used to "another part of the alphabet" at college fairs!

Travel is also a time to reconnect with hundreds of school counselor office's in High Schools all over the country! Between the 11 of us in the office we will visit thousands of High Schools and meet with some wonderful school counselors and their interested students.

I began my travel this past Friday in New Hampshire. I was visiting schools in the Portsmouth area. Portsmouth High School happened to be my first visit of the season. Portsmouth is a great school with a wonderful College Counselor named Mr. Modern. I always remind him about my first year at Stonehill when I visited him at Portsmouth and found myself in the middle of a fire drill. Without missing a beat, Mr. Modern brought over the students that were interested in Stonehill and we all met outside to talk. He has always been very nice to me over the years and it is clear that he knows his students well. I met with 6 wonderful students and they asked some great questions.

Quick tip to all you students out there: If you are interested in a College that is visiting your school, come prepared with a few questions to ask the Admissions Counselor at the visit. We all meet hundreds of students a year, but we are more apt to remember the ones that have clearly done their "homework" and ask some insightful questions during the High School visit!

Next up is Nashua, New Hampshire. I'll be sure to post an update soon!

Greg Mortenson comes to Stonehill

This Friday Stonehill hosted Greg Mortenson, author of the New York Times bestselling Three Cups of Tea. This event was open to the entire Stonehill community and the public, but most specifically geared towards the First-Year Class. Three Cups of Tea was assigned to the class of 2012 as their summer writing requirement. These students were encouraged to discuss the book with their Peer Mentors and orientation groups and to attend Mr. Mortenson's speech as a group. The Admissions Office also invited area high schools to attend and over 200 students and faculty members attended.



Packed house!

Greg Mortenson's speech

Standing ovation for Greg Mortenson

During his speech, Mortenson highlighted the main points of his book by taking the audience through his journey from a failed ascent to the peak of K2, to building schools in the most remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. He stressed the importance of educating girls in these societies since they have such an impact in these communities, especially in regards to combating terrorism by influencing their sons. At the end of his speech, the audience was given the opportunity to ask questions directly to Mr. Mortenson for approximately a half hour. For a detailed account of Greg Mortenson's speech, check out this article. http://www.stonehill.edu/x13967.xml

Into the Streets Day

In earlier post I had mentioned that I would be participating in Into the Streets Day. Into the Streets is the community service organization at Stonehill that also happens to be the largest student organization on campus. On Monday, August 25th, I joined the entire First Year Class, the Peer Mentors and other members of the Stonehill Community by participating in a community service project in the Easton area. My group's assignment was the Children's Museum of Easton. Our guide showed us around the museum and even let us play before getting to work! Our project was to prepare around 5,000 letters to be sent out to the community to make them aware of all the fun events the museum is holding this fall. Here's some pictures from our day.

College students like to play too! Climbing the tree fort at the Children's Museum

Our group waiting for the bus at the end of the day. Exhausted!

Afterwards the entire group headed back to the Sports Complex to reflect on our community service project. We all agreed that while it wasn't the most exciting or glamorous job, we all had a good time and felt we really helped out the Children's Museum. A mailing of this size would have taken their small staff all day! We were all glad that we could help out their staff and I look forward to staying involved with Into the Streets.

Interested in learning more about community service at Stonehill? Click here!

A Historic Week in Politics

I admit it...

I have been a political "junkie" for a long time. I majored in Political Science as a student here at Stonehill, and while there, I couldn't imagine a more interesting time to be studying politics. I was able to get a unique look into the workings of both the House and Senate as the impeachment hearings of President Clinton were laid out before all of us on TV. If that wasn't enough, during the fall of 2000 I had the opportunity to go to Washington D.C. to participate in a full-time internship with the Education Trust, a non-profit educational advocacy organization. I worked on K street which was a mile from the White House.

While there I was able to witness how the electoral college system can create some intense drama. I stayed up late election night and tried frantically to explain to my roommate who was from Mexico, why the winner of the contest switched 3 times! As we all remember it ultimately wouldn't be decided for over a month. I traveled with friends to the Supreme Court to wait for the Bush V. Gore decision and while I was disappointed in the outcome I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else.

Fast forward 8 years later and a tremendous week of politics that may rival 8 years ago in terms of significance has just ended.

First, a woman in this country has never come as close to the Presidency as Hillary has. On August 26th, 1920, the 19th amendment of the constitution passed that gave women the right to vote. 88 years later to the day, Hillary Clinton gave a wonderful speech at the Democratic National Convention where she reminded us of this historic event and put it into prospective as she explained that her mother was born before women could vote and now she was able to vote for her daughter for president. I talked to my own Grandmother, who is 90, about Hillary's speech and she said with immense pride that she was proud of what Hillary had accomplished.


At the same time we have the first African American to be nominated by a major political party as their candidate for President of the United States. Senator Obama accepted that nomination on the 45th anniversary of Dr. King's "I have a Dream" speech. Near the end of Obama's speech he said,

"It is the American promise that brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream. The men and women whogathered there could've heard many things. They could've heard words of anger and discord.They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred. But what the people heard instead -- people of every creed and color, from every walk of life -- is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one."

Finally McCain ended the week by announcing his pick for VP, Alaskan Governor, Sarah Palin. Palin is only the second woman, to be nominated as Vice President. Regardless of the outcome of this election in November, history will be made as someone other than a White, Male will occupy the Presidency or the Vice Presidency of the United States.

So maybe the exciting political times that shaped my time at Stonehill will be outdone by the present political climate. Regardless, it adds up to a historic time to be a student of politics...no matter what school you attend!

Is Summer Really Over???

Yes...summer's almost over. The first sign of its conclusion is the return of students to campus. Tomorrow Stonehill College welcomes 637 new First Year students to campus and we could not be more excited! I wish them all the best of luck. This Sunday should be really fun since the ENTIRE class of 2012 will head into Boston for the day. It's a great way for the students to get acquainted with their new surrounds and to really see what the city has to offer. Monday is Into the Streets Day- a community service day for the entire First-Year Class. Students are split into small groups with an upperclassmen student leader and a staff/faculty leader and assigned a local community service project to complete for the day. For the first time I'll be volunteering to help the program and I couldn't be more excited! I will have to remember to take some pictures for the blog :)

On a personal note, I was able to take the last of my vacation days last week. I packed up the car and spent a few days in Newport, RI with some friends from college. Here's a couple pictures from the week.

Brenton Point State Park, Newport, RI

Michele and I

No beach day would be right without a PB&J with your initial on it

Good luck to everyone with the upcoming school year!

Housekeeping note: For those interested in a Senior Class Visit Day, we have officially posted the dates. Stonehill will be hosting students from Monday, September 15th-Friday, November 14th. We will not be hosting students on Monday, October 13th or Tuesday, October 14th since there are no classes in session due to Columbus Day. Scheduling will officially begin in a few weeks once we have the class schedules of our student hosts.

Cape Cod Roadtrip

ROADTRIIPPP! Well...kinda. Liz Stender and Professor Ubertaccio (the Pre-Law Advisor and Director of the Martin Institute for Law and Society) have been busy planning a Send-Off Reception for students from the Cape Cod Area. Since Professor Ubertaccio lives in the area, he so graciously offered up his home for a location. The reception was a great way for students from the Cape to meet others that live close by and make some friends before starting classes this fall. Perhaps some carpool buddies in the making! Below is a step-by-step account of our journey.

Liz Stender: Admissions Counselor Extraordinaire. Clearly excited that she gets to meet all the students from Cape Cod that she spent all winter accepting.




















The spread: Stonehill College does NOT skimp when it comes to food.





















Is that what I think it is? OH SNAP! A Watermelon whale. I really wish I could take credit for it, but Liz's fiance spent 2 hours making this on Tuesday night....I just sprinkled on some blueberries.

Our guests are arriving! Professor Ubertaccio greets Coral Azarian (class of 2008) and her mother.


I hope that everyone who came had a great time! I was so busy I forgot to take pictures of our attendees but I hope the pre-party pictures did the job. Less than 2 more weeks until the Class of 2012 arrives on campus! Best of luck and enjoy what little is left of your summers!

A day at the lake...

Summertime in the Office of Admissions involves many things...Reflecting and evaluating this years programs, planning for the upcoming year in terms of travel and events, hosting thousands of visitors to our campus, and of course....using vacation time!

Well last week was I was enjoying option 4, although I would call it more of a "Staycation" as we didn't venture far from home. I have to admit I liked our staycation! Kelly (my wife) and I were able to tackle a few house projects that we (ok...actually I) had been putting off. One of the highlights of the week was going out to my father-in-law's lake house that he has in Spencer, MA. I was excited to bring our beagle Griffin to the lake to test out his interest (if any) in swimming!

By the way this is the beagle in question:

Now for Griffin, this was a day of many "firsts".

• First day in Spencer, MA
• First day spent at a lake
• First time on a boat
• First time trying to swim (not successful) but he earned a treat anyway
  

Griffin really enjoyed the boat part...

Griffin enjoying the view!




Kel and I also enjoyed having Griffin around!



Now, I thought it was a bit cold to swim...


This is my brother-in-law, Jeff, trying to decide if he was going to jump in...



His own kids and niece finally convinced him...
(It looks like his son, Matt, needed some additional convincing!)

It was a great day and I hope there is time for some more days like this before Summer ends!