Vairo Library surveys social media possibilities

By: Sara Piatetsky, Lion’s Eye Staff Writer, svp5316@psu.edu

The spring semester has been a semester where students and faculty have watched the campus slowly being to transform into a bigger, better Brandywine.

The changes don’t just come in big forms such as buildings and new ways to schedule courses.  Behind the scenes, the Vairo Library has been working on ways to change and better its reach and interaction with students on campus. Besides being a faithful hide away for finals and having spacious areas for group work, the library offers a lot more than printers and emergency cell phone chargers.

With finals approaching, the library will offer extended hours (including free coffee after 7 p.m.), a safe zone better known as the quiet zone downstairs, plenty of tables for projects and final paper touches from the Writing Studio. The library is also home to the media commons lab, the one button studio, and the STEM lab. However, students may not be aware of what the library offers because of a gap in communication between the library and students.

In March, Vairo library intern and a friendly face around the library, Malaika Hamid, lead a survey. The survey was conducted to discover what library resources students enjoyed the most and what visual and social media the library should adopt to better communicate with the campus community. The survey had 131 student responses.

Head Librarian Susan Ware explained that a word cloud was created based off of the survey showing how students perceive the library’s atmosphere. An overview of the results showed that students relate word such as: study, chill, procrastination and helpful with the library. The word cloud displays how the library can offer many different environments from the students’ needs and assistance.

“The library is looking into expanding its options for students,” Ware said. “We’re currently working on adding individual study pods to the library for students to work alone but still be a part of the library environment, the pods are a lot like the singular work places in the quiet zone.”

The most popular areas of the library, according to the survey, for students were the study tables, the quiet zone, and the group study cells.

“I spend a lot of time in the library and the Lion’s Den,” Senior psychology student Alexis Cavalli said. “I always read the messages on the screens because they’re typically attention catching and brief but information. I think they’re good resources for students because they give you the information you need and might want quickly without drowning you in details. I get a lot of event news and even the library hours from there.”

Eighty-nine percent of the respondents from the survey agree with Cavalli that they learn news about the library from the digital screen behind the front desk.

If the visual aids in the library are enough to make a large impression on the students who come through the library daily, the question is how social media can help as well. The library’s presence on social media could give students better access to library, research presentations, and other resources that become available to students through library.

Based off of the survey results, Hamid will conduct a focus group of 12 students. The focus group will be used to gather more detailed information about the preferred media for communication with the library students on campus.

There is currently a minimum presence of the library online, only through the library’s official webpage. The reach of a Facebook and Twitter account would not only be a way to inform students, but also the network of alumni of the exiting resources, services and development of the Vairo Library.

This summer the library staff plans to further the research based off of Hamid’s survey and focus group to improve the library’s communication strategies. Depending on the results, a Facebook and Twitter account may start in time for the fall semester.

By: Meghan Burton, Lion’s Eye staff writer, mcb5509@psu.edu

Spring Fling was in full swing on Brandywine’s campus on April 27.

A live band, food, refreshments, inflatables, novelties, puppies and to top it off a fashion show took place on the campus lawn.

The band called Lost in Paris also known as the LIP’s entertained the students. They played upbeat popular music from well-known artist such as Justin Bieber, The Weeknd and Bruno Mars. Randy Major, lead vocalist and guitarist, amped the students up for the last week of classes.

Along with a great entertainment, there was great food. Zac’s Hamburgers, a family-operated business set up a tent. The Zac’s staff gave out free hamburgers and veggie burgers.

Senior Chris Burton enjoyed himself.

“They were delicious,” Burton said.

Even though the weather was a little chilly, students also indulged in Rita’s Italian Ice. Inflatable and novelties such as a moon bounce obstacle course and human hamster balls were located on the left side of the lawn. Students were able to let out some energy by playing against each other in different games using these inflatable contraptions.

PAWS, an organization that helps animals, was also present and they had puppies. Students got to relieve some upcoming exam stress by petting various furry friends, along with learning more about the mission of PAWS.

“I think PAWS is a wonderful organization,” junior Julia Allman said. “I am an animal lover so it was awesome to get the opportunity to play with puppies today.”

Lastly, a fashion show took place near the fountain area. Meaghan Paige, a senior at Brandywine and designer, displayed her new spring fashion line. This line was filled with colorful patterns and illustrated a 50s vibe. Paige had Brandywine students, such as Hannah Rogers, model her clothes.

“I had so much fun at the show and I am so proud of my friend Meaghan,” Rogers said. “She is so talented.”

Spring Fling, filled with activities, food and entertainment, allowed students to relax and have fun before final exam week.

By Joel Koshy, Lion’s Eye staff writer, jxk5149@psu.edu

Presidential candidate Governor John Kasich stopped by Penn State Brandywine for a town hall meeting on Thursday, April 20.

It was an interesting turn of events, when the Governor stepped on the stage to deliver his speech. Kasich introduced himself as a man who comes from a working class family; he mentioned how his father was a mailman and his grandfather worked as a coal miner.

“My whole purpose in political life has been to stick up for people who don’t have a voice,” Kasich said.

Behind Kasich was a large ticker with a dollar amount, which represented the national debt of the United States; it was somewhere around $19 trillion and rising. Kasich strongly believes that he’s the only candidate in the Republican Party, who can bring both the Republican and Democratic parties together and come up solutions to help move the country move forward.

Kasich has no intentions of dropping out if the race anytime soon, even though he’s far behind Donald Trump and Ted Cruz as they seem to be taking the lead at the moment.

“I’m aware of the fact that the Democratic National Committee is trying really hard to get me out of this race, because they really don’t want me to run against Hillary,” Kasich said.

Towards the end of the meeting, audience members were more than happy with his speech, and they stood up an applauded Kasich for his passion for change and leadership to be the change the country needs.

Not everyone on the crowd was applauding; one example is 26-year-old Will Gruehn, a communication student at PSU Brandywine who will vote for the president of United States for the third time.

“I thought he had some good points, but it was boring and unimpressive which was reflected by the disappointing turn out,” Gruehn said.

The Pennsylvania primary was held on Tuesday, April 26.

By: Deja Footes, Lion’s Eye Staff Editor, dmf5475@psu.edu

Dr. Angela Putman, a new communication arts and sciences professor, from Detroit Michigan is very excited to be in her first year here at Brandywine.

She graduated from Western Michigan.

“I didn’t take the traditional education path of getting all three degrees right away,” Putman said. ” I started teaching first.”

Putman began teaching in communications at colleges in Dallas and South Texas. After teaching full-time for eight years, Putman realized teaching
was her passion and decided to pursue her doctorate to be able to do this as her career. During the third year of her Ph.D. program in intercultural communication from University of New Mexico, she landed a job at Borough of Manhattan Community College as an assistant professor in the communications and theatre department and joined her fiancé in New York City.

Putman explained that living in New York City was not what she expected.

“It was hard, and fast-paced,” Putman said. “There is not much human connection at all. People rarely look at each other or talk to each other and are mostly wearing earbuds. Since I am from the Midwest, I am used to talking to people, even strangers. When I tried to strike up conversations with people, they would give me a funny look or not even respond.”

After filling out many job applications, she finally secured the perfect opportunity at Penn State Brandywine and she and her fiancé moved to Delaware
County. Her fiancé, turned husband, currently teaches middle school in Havertown.  Putman did not always want to be a professor.

“I never thought I wanted to be a professor, I wanted to be Whitney Houston,” Putman said.

She originally went to college for voice performance, but learned that it was a struggle.

“Throughout high school I was the big fish in a little pond, but in college I became a tiny fish in a big pond,” Putman said.

After failing her sophomore jury exam and having a deep conversation with her voice teacher, she realized that she had the talent but not the drive to be an opera singer.

She took a semester off from music and decided to take all general education classes. One class she took and ended up connecting with was the interpersonal communication class.

“This was the first class in college that I took that made sense to me,” Putman said.

Putman then decided to go to graduate school, and is the first in her family with a degree.  In graduate school, Putman earned a teaching assistantship and realized that she had found her dream job as a college professor, and the rest is Brandywine history.

By: Paul Alberici, Lion’s Eye Editor, paa5102@psu.edu

Each fall and spring break, Brandywine gives its students the opportunity to travel around the world, study abroad and take classes in a variety
of countries.

However, this past spring break, the office of Student Affairs at Brandywine gave students a unique travel experience to Nassau, the
capitol of The Bahamas for a cultural immersion and service learning trip.

Ronika Money-Adams and Stephanie Jones, the director and associate director of Student Affairs respectively, were the ones responsible for organizing the
trip. The motives for the trip were clear as were their hopes for what the students would get out of the trip.

“When you think of The Bahamas, you think of paradise,” Jones said. “I wanted the students to see real side of it all, especially the people and the culture.
My hope was that students would see the similarities with areas in the greater Philadelphia area to areas in the international community.”

The trip was run by “Bahama Shorts,” and was organized by the founder of the company, Valdez Russell. This company’s purpose is to expose groups
to the side of The Bahamas where most people live which, for the most part, is impoverished. A group of about 10 students went on this trip, all of whom are at different points in their college careers. Some were freshman and some were seniors. Other than the planning done prior to the trip, such as a book drive to help fill their under-stocked and out-dated libraries, most of them really didn’t know what to expect before they traveled down to Nassau at the beginning
of their spring break.

“I expected to do the events we did but I did not expect it to have such an awesome effect on me. I knew I’d leave with a better view of myself
and the world but I really had no clue what I was getting into. It was such an amazing experience that absolutely surpassed all expectations in so many
ways.”

Along with students from Penn State Brandywine, a group of about the same size joined them from Penn State York, led by their Director of Student Affairs,
Patrick Tanner. This trip had two components to it; a service aspect and a cultural immersion aspect.  During the service aspect of this week long trip, the students traveled to schools to do a variety of different tasks such as reading to students, stocking the libraries with the books they brought, as well as being an aid for some of the students in the classroom.

The cultural immersion aspect of the trip consisted more of the historical side of the Bahamian people. This piece consisted of a trip around historic
Nassau, sampling a variety of different Bahamian foods, learning about different festivals and customs of the people, shadowing professionals in the
students intended majors at the technical school, and even attending a class at the College of The Bahamas.  With all of these different memorable
experiences, students had a variety of stand-out memories from the trip.

“My favorite memory about the trip was going to the elementary school and middle school and reading to the children and answering their questions,”
Brandywine sophomore Kara Lester said. “They were all bright for their age that they often had me pause to think. One question, for example,
was ‘how many people actually live in the United States?’ They were so excited to know more about our country so it was really nice to be able to answer
their questions.”

Fatima Kebe, a junior at Brandywine, really enjoyed the historic tour around Nassau.

“Most people go to Nassau for the paradise island but never see the city of Nassau or the island of New Providence,” Kebe said. “So to be able to be given the chance to see what Nassau consists of was really a highlight of trip.”

This trip was truly life changing for pretty much everyone who went and had a different impact on each of them. In a sense, this fulfilled what  Jones and Money-Adams hoped students would get out of it.

“[I was] more than pleased with the outcome,” Jones said. “He [Valdez Russell] had a very enriching itinerary that gave the students the best possible experience.”

With the positive feedback from this trip, they hope to continue this trip for other students for years to come so more people can see both
sides of paradise.