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Yearly Archives: 2017
Mr. Juniata
On Saturday November 11th I got the chance to go to one of Juniata’s most loved traditions; the Mr. Juniata competition. Every year boys from all of the classes are voted in to compete with each other in front of a panel of judges to win the crown. One of the judges this year really caused a stir, Laura our favorite Sodexo employee who had left us came back for a visit. The contestants all participate in an opening dance number, usually choreographed by the dance club. Every year we have a different theme for the Mr. Juniata competition and this year’s theme was ‘king of the island’ so everything was tropical. The contestants are given a list of questions to answer ahead of time which the host, Professor Amy Mathur, uses to introduce them for the talent portion of the competition.
Each person creates their own act, sometimes individual and sometimes with the help of friends, to put on in front of the judges and students. It’s always incredibly entertaining and I’m always surprised by the creativity and effort put into their talents. From there they bring out their escorts for the night dressed in their formal wear and present their escorts with a gift. Some of the gifts given are very heartfelt and beautiful while others are just silly but still well meaning. The boys model their formal wear for the judges and are sent off while the scores are compiled. The top three contestants are selected and asked two questions, one they were given that morning and the other they had no preparation for. Most of the time the answers are ridiculous because they’re made up on the spot but it’s all good fun. Then the judges pick their winner, this year our winner was a senior at Juniata College, Storm.
I’m always shocked by how much goes into this competition, the decorations are amazing and there are well thought out questions to match the theme for the boys who always give us answers that make us giggle. Mr. Juniata really is something that is unique to our college. It shows how all of the different classes can come together to create something brilliant despite competing and have some good-natured fun. This gives you a great idea of the general environment on campus, everyone is always so friendly and willing to help each other out.
Is Everyone at Juniata a Master Juggler?
Juniata’s Concert Choir
On Sunday November 5th, a group of friends and I went to see Juniata College’s Concert Choir to support our friend who is a member. They sang eighteen songs, which is an impressive amount of songs to learn. Several of the songs were performed in a different language with the translation in the program provided at the door. We learned that the choir is going to travel to Vietnam in January to perform with another Vietnamese choir, we heard some of the songs they are working on in Vietnamese for this trip. The choir travels to another country every two years to sing abroad and experience a new culture. I don’t know anywhere else that has their choir travel like ours does. This really speaks to the liberal arts education that Juniata strives for. It gives students a more well-rounded knowledge of the world. My favorite song was called “Northern Lights”; it was a beautiful piece that showed the skill of the singers and the effort that they have put into this concert. The emotion in the voices of the choir could be felt and many of the audience members were moved by this piece. I also enjoyed listening to the different folk songs which were more upbeat and energetic.
The audience seemed to respond best to the folk songs because of the energy coming from the choir. They all looked like they were having a lot of fun up on stage singing those songs which is important during a performance. There were a few solos that were beautifully done and could easily be heard. Most of the choir’s songs were done A Capella, which is amazing because it can be very difficult to stay together without music, but during one of the folk songs three students came down off the risers to place instruments to accompany the singing. This added a fun aspect to an already entertaining piece. I have always loved going to see the concert choir’s performance. The singers all appear professional but they also show how much they enjoy singing. Their music is varied so that you don’t have to listen to the same kind of music for the entirety of the concert and it shows off the skill and work the singers have and have put into their concert. I would encourage everyone to attend more of the choir’s concerts to support them and as a chance to experience the beautiful music that these students work so hard to provide for their audience. It really is a wonderful experience to heard my fellow students doing what they love and creating something so unique.
ABASM: We Came for the Science and Stayed for the free T-shirt
This past weekend, several Juniata students had the opportunity to present their research at the Allegheny Branch of the American Society of Microbiology’s yearly conference. As a bonus the meeting was held right here at Juniata in the von Liebig Center for Science. The conference took place over the course of roughly thirty-six hours starting from early afternoon on Friday and ending early evening on Saturday. Over the course of those thirty-six hours students from nineteen institutions, both graduate and undergraduate, had the opportunity to learn about a diverse range of topics from distinguished speakers and from one another. There were several unique presentations over the two-day period. The first was a self-mentorship workshop where the speaker guided us through introspective searches into our deepest desires and goals which we later used to help craft a personal mission statement. The next day we participated in a workshop given by a Juniata alumnus that now works at Ecovative, a company that produces biodegradable packaging products with fungus. We even got to take some samples home with us! To close out the conference Juniata’s very own Dr. Belle Tuten, a history professor that specializes in medieval medicine, gave a talk on the methods by which doctors in medieval times used to treat wounds. The subject matter, which was quite humorous by itself, was made even more so by Dr. Tuten delivering her speech as if the medical practices of the past were perfectly reasonable methods for treating diseases.
While the workshops and speaker sessions were fun and educational, nothing compared to the student presentations. Although I presented this summer at the Landmark Conference at Susquehanna University, presenting at an actual society meeting had a much more significant feel to it. Sharing my hard work with a room full of people who were just as big or bigger science nerds than me was phenomenal and then being able to sit back down and learn about all the other awesome projects students were working on was just as exhilarating. This conference further affirmed by desire to go into research when I graduate from Juniata this May. I learned so many new things about tools like CRISPR and about how viruses affect fetal brain development, to cover just a few things. This conference increased my thirst for knowledge and understanding about the scientific world and made me that much more excited about graduate school next year.
Of course, none of this would have been possible without the constant support and mentoring by Dr. Regina Lamendella and Justin Wright and their lab. Without them I highly doubt that our lab would have done so well at the conference, and many of us that presented wouldn’t have had as high quality research to present on without their connections and collaborations. There are many labs that conduct undergraduate research on campus. Students can do research in almost every department on campus, and many students present this research at local, regional and national conferences, including the National Conference on Undergraduate Research and our very own Liberal Arts Symposium which we host every Spring.
From my experience, albeit limited, Juniata has one of the best programs for undergraduate research. Everyone is encouraged to participate and you can get involved as early as your freshmen year. All it takes is a little initiative, drive to succeed and no small amount of curiosity on your part. Even if you don’t think you’ll like research, I still encourage you to participate. You might find, like me, that you love research and the amazing sense of discovery that comes with it, and find it much more satisfying than being a doctor. Or you might not. It is better to try and not like it, then never try and miss out on an amazing opportunity. Not only that but if you do want to go to med school it looks good if you have done research.
I leave you with this: Research can be difficult. There are days where you will want to pull your hair out because your line of code just isn’t working or your organic reaction has failed for the twentieth time. If you get nothing else out of research, you will at least learn the ability to fail. Yes, the ability to fail. It is an art, one that I am still mastering. Sure, succeeding at everything you do feels great, but you don’t really learn anything from it. Failing teaches perseverance and creativity. Believe me, you do a lot of failing when you first start researching. You learn as you go and slowly, you improve. The quality of your work gets better as does the understanding of your project, and for me, my desire to learn more about what I was researching also increased. It is quite a journey but there is no better place to undertake that journey than Juniata.
“How Did You End Up at Juniata?”
I so often get asked how and why I ended up here at Juniata, in a tiny, little mountain town in the middle of rural Pennsylvania. I grew up in southern Louisiana for most of my life before moving to Singapore for four years, so needless to say Huntingdon is a bit of a change of pace from what I was used to. When it came time to start looking for colleges I knew one thing for sure- I wanted to be somewhere that was completely different from what I already knew, and that’s how I ended up here.
At the time that I visited Juniata I was dead set on coming here, Juniata had been on my mind since early on in my freshman year of high school, so I had been waiting a long time to finally see it. I spent most of the plane ride bouncing in my seat, overly excited and driving my mom nuts. My mom and I got to Huntingdon late in the evening on a weeknight and weren’t going to campus until the next morning, so our plan was just to grab some dinner and look around the area a bit. At first glance, Huntingdon wasn’t quite what I had expected. I had spent months fantasizing about Juniata and what it would be like here, but the town was so much smaller than I had imagined. I was honestly so scared that the place I’d spent forever dreaming about was all wrong for me. That night I lai
d in the hotel room bed panicking about what I was going to do and it wasn’t until the next morning when we finally got to campus that everything started falling into place.
Pretty much from the second we were on campus my whole mood changed. I had been told by a lot of my older friends that when you found the right college that you would just know, there’d be some magic “click” inside of you and that would be it. I never understood that until I walked onto campus here at Juniata. All of my fears from the night before were gone as soon as I stood in the middle of the quad. As cliché and cheesy as it may sound, something just felt right on campus. Despite how I’d felt before I knew that this campus was my home. Now, a year and a half into my Juniata career I know that I absolutely made the right choice in coming here. This little town that felt so scary at first is now the place where I feel safest and most at peace.
