This year’s Dean’s Award for Excellence in the Liberal Arts (DAELA) Laureates span the spectrum of educational merits. From community-engaged learning to study abroad, from student-faculty collaboration to independent research, these students have learned in classrooms and communities across the globe and they have taken “inter-disciplinary” to a whole new level. Now, they’re giving back by sharing their stories of academic, personal and professional prosperity. Perhaps everyone could learn something from the 2015 DAELA Laureates.
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“What do you think has made you stand out in your department?”
“My research being selected for a national conference in D.C.,” said Rebecca Flores, who recently was selected as the official undergraduate Political Science representative at the the annual “Posters on the Hill,” hosted by the Council on Undergraduate Research. Students are carefully selected for the presentation from universities across the country to present their findings to Congress with the objective of emboldening legislators to fund undergraduate research.
“The key is I read everything. I really wanted to learn what [I] was assigned,” said Andrew Wallach. He has put the critical thinking skills to the ultimate test as part of TCNJ’s Moot Court, which prepares students to compete on the national level in litigation-style court cases. Andrew and his Moot Court partner made it to the finals of the national tournament for undergraduate students.
“(I) got paid to do research for the Lawrence Township Police Department,” said Kim Bernstein, who got the Jeffrey Ralston Crime Analytics fellowship as a sophomore along with four upperclassmen and under the mentoring of Dr. David Holleran (Criminology). “We got all of their police dispatch data for the past four years. I looked at simple assaults related to alcohol outlets to see if there was any correlation between where there was alcohol and where there were assaults.”
“We were sending these results to the Chief of Police and saying ‘this is what we found about your town, you can use this to your advantage.’ It felt immediate and important,” Kim explained.
“My sensitivity gives me an openness to other people’s experiences. I don’t come at people with preconceived notions of how they should be,” said Alison Buske. She told the story of how she helped an otherwise unmotivated student in her student teaching classroom create a project around his interest in engineering in an English class. “I tapped into what he was good at.”
“How do you define success? What examples of that in your TCNJ career have fit that definition?”
“It’s two fold: one, it’s setting goals for yourself and meeting those goals. Two, the goals have to be satisfying. I think satisfaction plays a big role in success,” said Nick Lauda. He has organized a regular conversation about philosophy, called “Socrates Café,” which takes place between TCNJ students and inmates at the Mercer County Correction Center.
“Doing something at the end of the day that you’re proud of and doing something you don’t expect yourself to do,” said Ashley Schreyer, who took a community-engaged learning course in the Mercer County Correctional Center. It was in her FSP: “Literature of the Prison,” that she first discovered this opportunity while reading a book that was a compilation of essays from prisoners. The following semester she took a class that sent her every Wednesday night to the prison, where the students and prisoners exchanged original short stories.
“I just went for it and it definitely helped me be a better person and it helped me appreciate college a lot more because the prisoners don’t have that opportunity,” Ashley said.
“Success for me is not giving up. By coming to TCNJ and building relationships with people, I’ve found success in just being happy,” said Olivia Smith, who is currently interning at the Howley Preschool as part of her “Feminism in the Workplace” course. She works with the school’s family workers during the in-take process.
“Using something that you’re really intensely interested in to stand out and make your research come alive in whole other dimension,” said Caitlin Wiesner. She accomplished this educational enterprise during an internship at her local living history museum, Historic Cold Spring Village.
“I was able to create my own independent exhibits. I decided to do a project on African-American women’s history in my local county,” Caitlin said. During her internship she discovered among the archives that Harriet Tubman and the first black, female Methodist minister had lived in Cape May County, N.J. “It made my research come alive to a wider audience and make them more aware of the world they live in.
“Gaining knowledge and experience through helping others,” said Rebecca, who has also been an online writing tutor and helps students at The Tutoring Center with Applied Statistical Analysis for Political Science, POL 200. “Through helping people with tutoring, I have learned things and I have been able to take that and put it into my own research.”
“Facing a challenge and having the self-motivation to just keep trying until you finish you what you set out to do,” Kim said, claiming she learned this during her Crime Analytics Fellowship, where she was assigned to apply her classroom knowledge to analyses of crime data. “If you have a job put in front of you and you work until you complete it and you work hard and you ask for help when you need to, that leads to success.”
“What advice do you have for incoming freshman to be able to achieve as much as you have?”
“The first piece of advice that I would give to an incoming freshman would be to understand the opportunity that they have,” said Jeimy Herrera-Velasquez, who moved from her home country Colombia where she began studying teaching at the age of 16. Since then she has obtained her Associate’s Degree and received the Transfer Scholarship (a full ride) for having a perfect 4.0 GPA. Now she is participating in TCNJ’s student teaching program.
“I consider myself truly blessed for having the opportunity to attend TCNJ,” Jeimy said.
“Try to fit as much as you can in four years,” said Joanna Peluso. She attributes her success to starting college as an Open Options major and having not set out on a specific path. During her last semesters at TCNJ she was an Open Options HSS peer mentor, guiding students that began like she had through their goal-making process. “Everyone knows you could be a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant. But there’s so many more nuanced jobs that no one knows. There’s so much beyond your initial conception.”
“To try everything. If it interests you in the slightest bit, then try it out. Because I was joining different clubs, my worldview was expanded so greatly,” Nick said. He learned about the importance of gender and LGBTQ issues in poverty and mass incarceration through Women’s and Gender Studies courses. This, he said, fueled his passion for social justice, which he now applies to work as the Bonner Center’s leader for the team that works in Juvenile Justice and Prison Reentry.
“There are a lot more issues that I did not know about that I am actually interested in fighting against,” Nick said.
“Don’t get swept up in academics. You have passions and they are your sustaining force. You can get so much value through your interests and hobbies and passion,” said Carly DaSilva, the President of INK, TCNJ’s creative writing society. Carly has minors in two different schools – Interactive Multimedia and Marketing – and is also a Community Advisor, has had several internships in the publishing industry in New York, and she is involved in the musical theater and acting clubs on campus.
“You have the power to market yourself and your skill set so that you are a valuable asset to the working world,” Carly said.
“Describe one academic or professional experience that embodies the goals and attitudes you have learned since entering TCNJ.”
Katherine Scott is involved in the TCNJ Chorale and said that this experience has added to her appreciation of what can be done with a team.
“I enjoy the opportunity to join together as a group and make music together. It’s powerful that we can move people to the extent that we can. When people are really passionate about something, it really can become this great entity.”
Andrew, who studied abroad in Spain during his sophomore year, is a peer mentor for TCNJ’s International exchange students. This semester he has helped organize the first series of “Language and Cultural Mixers” in the college’s history, connecting the exchange students with TCNJ students and teaching both groups the importance of cross-cultural learning.
“When you’re like me and you value efficiency and maximization over everything, it’s tough to do that when you’re throw into another country and they don’t really tell you what to do. I met with a ton of Spaniards and that was my way of making joy,” said Andrew, showing that his multi-cultural experiences have given him the opportunity to step outside of his comfort zone and to help others enjoy the power of learning.
Olivia participated in the faculty-led course “A Gendered History of Food” to Italy. Taught by Dr. Anne Marie Nicolosi (History), the WGS-and-History fused course took place for several weeks and included traveling to many of Italy’s gastronomical sites – such as a Limoncello factory and an olive oil farm.
“I got to see the world in a different context. In WGS, that’s what we do. We’re studying people, we’re studying relationships with people, different cultures, different ethnicities,” Olivia said, explaining that by exploring Italy she was able to de-familiarize herself from the culture(s) she is used to. “I think that’s what WGS is all about.”
Kim believes one of her seminal accomplishments at TCNJ has been getting the opportunity to fuse her dual majors, Criminology and Psychology in her final research project.
“It’s about how one looks like a ‘prototypic’ member of their race and how that affects criminal justice outcomes,” Kim explained about her year-long Psychology and Criminology-fused honors thesis on racial profiling. The thesis has given her the opportunity to “get that Psychology and Criminology background to finally meet,” which has made this research the pinnacle of her inter-disciplinary studies, she said.
Finally, let’s take a peek at what the DAELA Laureates have to look forward to post-graduation.
“What plans do you have for after graduation? And what does your ideal future career look like?”
Kim — Received a stipend and fellowship, given to outstanding incoming students, to go for her Ph.D. in Criminal Justice Studies at University of Albany.
Alison —Will be teaching English at Stem Civics Charter school in Trenton starting in Fall 2015.
Carly — “I’d like a stable entry-level position within the [publishing] industry that I can build on so I can eventually acquire books as an editor.” She ideally would to find work at a publishing imprint where she can be involved in subjects such as fiction, memoirs, children’s books and poetry.
Rebecca — “My ideal career would be advocating for small businesses and business initiatives that would promote healthy relationships between workers and their companies and allow for companies to hire more workers because when people have jobs they have more social capital and are more invested in the world and living healthy and respectable lives.”
Jeimy — “I will be teaching Spanish at Pond Road Middle School in Robbinsville, NJ. I also have plans to go to graduate school in the near future; I wish to become a college professor.”
Nick — “In June I will start a full-time position at Aerotek in Secaucus, NJ. It’s a staffing agency. I am interested in working in a global corporation, heading up their corporate social responsibility department (CSR), or attacking the bus/human rights issue by working for a global civil actor, like the UN.”
Joanna — “I am confident in the fact that I have over these last four years gotten enough skills to prepare to move on to whatever future it may be.”
Ashley — “I’m hoping to do something in journalism or marketing, but whatever I do I want a career where I’m challenged and my work feels meaningful.”
Katherine — Received full funding for the Ph.D. program in Social & Developmental Psychology at University of Wisconsin – Madison. Her research focus will be the development of prejudice.
Olivia —“I’ve been focusing on eco-feminism. I want to go into activism and especially in the environmental field.” She is now writing her capstone paper about empowering female farmers under the mentoring of Dr. Janet Gray (WGS) with the working title, “The Invisibility of Female Farmers in American Agriculture.”
Andrew — “Problem solving, persuasion, and public speaking are three skills I hope to exercise; so a job that invokes those.” Andrew will be attending University of Pennsylvania’s Law School to obtain his J.D. beginning in Fall 2015.
Caitlin — Will be beginning the Ph.D. program in History at Rutgers University in Fall 2015.
If there is any appropriate summary of these stellar students and their diverse experiences it is this: there more learning to do in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences than meets the eye. These are a few key attributes that all of these successful students share: extra-curricular work, independent research, and internships; genuine connections with faculty; community engagement; open-mindedness; selflessness and a desire to help others; and a profound capacity to demonstrate and pursue their ambitions. (See: the EXCeL Model)
The Complete Profiles of the 2015 DAELA Laureates
Meet the Faculty Mentors of the 2015 DAELA Laureates
—Story and Interviews by Jack Meyers
—Photography by Jaryd Frankel