Author: Leah Williams

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College Receives NetVUE Grant

Houghton recently received a $50,000 grant for networking for vocation in undergraduate education. This grant was given to Houghton by the Council of Independent Colleges, a group of which Houghton has been a part for many years. This grant is intended to help colleges who wish to expand on their vocational programs and services. “The overall goal of this grant is to help transform our authentic but often informal mentoring for vocation,” said associate dean for academic affairs Mark Hijleh.

Luckey_2Along with Mark Hijleh, the grant team which will be providing leadership to this initiative includes Robert Pool, vice president for student life; Professor Rich Eckley; Dan Noyes, executive director of alumni relations; Brian Reitnour, career services coordinator; Michael Jordan, dean of the chapel; and Mark Hunter, CASA director.

“Consistency” was one of Robert Pool’s choice words when describing the hopes he had for the vocational program. “I hope there is more consistency in the questions professors ask students as well as the answers they give them.” Pool hopes that when students meet with their advisors, discussions will be more along the lines of what the student’s strengths and weaknesses are as well as what they plan to do in the future. Through that the professor could connect them with alumni, as well as set up interviews and internships for that student. “We already have these things available to the students but we hope to make it more intentional.”

Currently, Houghton’s vocational programs include Transitions, sophomore retreat, HELP Day, guest executive dinners, Imitators of Christ, academic capstone projects, and alumni connections. “Houghton has supported students in vocational aspiration all along, but this project will help us bring together many elements of this exploration into a more coherent and effective whole,” said Hijleh.

“What we want students to be able to ask themselves is, ‘Who am I?’, ‘Who am I in Christ?’, ‘What’s my purpose?’ and ‘How can I use my services?’ We are trying to prepare students for lives of significance,” said Pool.

Current students as well as future students will benefit from this program. “We will be able to communicate the program’s coherence and benefits to prospective students and their families, which we believe will make the value of a Houghton education much clearer,” said Hijleh. Hannah Zgrablich, junior, said, “I’m interested to see how this program will develop. It would be extremely useful to focus more on our future careers while we’re in school so as not to be in complete shock when it’s time to face the real world.”

Hijleh, along with the rest of the grant team have high hopes for this program. “All of this will come together over the next two years in the form of ‘VOCA’ a new center for exploration of vocation. Students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members will have access to and be encouraged to make use of materials and programs that assist them with making connections between spiritual formation, Christian calling, academic advising, coursework and co-curricular activities, career development and professional networking in the context of Houghton’s mission to ‘to lead and labor as scholar-servants in a changing world.’”

 

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Stories In Focus

Jillian Sokso Attains Competitive Artist Residency

Professor Jillian Sokso, Associate Professor of Art, has recently returned from a two week residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA). With the help of the faculty development committee Sokso was able to achieve the great honor of attending the VCCA.

For over forty years, the VCCA has supported the work of about 350 artists, painters, sculptors, photographers, filmmakers; composers and writers. Typically there are 23 fellows in residency at one time. This includes anyone from a renowned artist to an eager young artist at the beginning of their professional career. Sokso, ever so humbly, said “I am still baffled I was able to get in, it was gratifying being among that caliber of people” as she reminisced about her time at VCCA.

SoksoThe VCCA provides artists with their own bedroom, three meals a day, and a private studio allowing for the artists to work for hours, days, or weeks completely uninterrupted. “My studio was 700 square feet, had large windows and a skylight,” said Sokso. The VCCA is also surrounded by 400 acres of rolling Blue Ridge farmland, a view Sokso was able to enjoy from her studio.

Artist who have done a residency at VCCA say they were able to accomplish more work there in a matter of weeks than they would have in a year at home. “Time. Time was the most precious commodity and richest blessing,” said Sokso. The VCCA provides a quiet and creative environment for the artists, allowing them to get away from everything as well as giving them the opportunity to be surrounded by more than 20 other highly talented artists which allows for in-depth discussions and new ideas for artists to ponder. “Writers would host readings in their studios and visual artists would invite the fellows to their studio for art critiques,” said Sokso. Along with completing sculptures, an artist book, and a series of 24 drawings, Sokso was also able to trade prints with a printmaker from Virginia.

Past fellows of VCCA include recipients of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Academy in Rome, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, as well as winners of National Book Awards, Pulitzer Prizes, and MacArthur genius awards. Due to the great accomplishments of past fellows, VCCA has become a highly desired residency, making admissions extremely competitive. According to one of their fellows, the VCAA is “one of the most important sources of art in the world.”

Despite her talent and amazing accomplishment of being accepted into the VCCA, Sokso was nothing but humble throughout the interview. She continually expressed her gratitude to the faculty development committee who made it financially possible for her to attend, as well as the Dean’s office that helped provide a stand-in instructor for her students.

Sokso has now set her sights on VCCA’s satellite program in France which requires fellows to have first been to VCCA. “I would like to apply to the program in France, it’s more of a narrow pool and would be a challenge to get in.”

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Stories In Focus

Home for the Holidays? International Students and Breaks

A homecooked meal, relaxing with your family, and the simplicity of being home are things most of us take for granted. International students on the other hand will not be experiencing these luxuries for the upcoming Thanksgiving break. Rather than with their families, most international students spend their Thanksgiving breaks with friends or host families.

Houghton’s intercultural student program has set up programs for the international students who do not have the option of going home with friends. “Internationals who want host families are connected with a family who will ‘friend’ and provide some home atmosphere for them,” said Margo Kettelkamp, intercultural student program coordinator.  Senior Danny Kim, a student from South Korea, said “Houghton has done a great job with adapting international students to the campus and making sure there are places for the students who don’t have anywhere to go during breaks.”

Senior Paul Seddon, a student from the United Kingdom, was previously unaccustomed to celebrating Thanksgiving, “It was strange at first but I enjoy it now.” It was the extreme extent to which we celebrate holidays which took Kim off guard. “Thanksgiving I understand, Christmas, of course. But why on the Fourth of July do you all need to get together and eat a hamburger, hot dog, sausage, and everything else in sight to celebrate our founding fathers? That’s something about one of your holiday’s that confuses me.”

Along with adapting to celebrating our holidays international students also have to go without celebrating theirs. Kim misses Hangul Day, the holiday celebrating the Korean written language. Seddon misses Guy Fawkes Day on November 5th when, in the early 17th century, Guy Fawkes planted gunpowder under Parliament but was caught. Also, on November 11th, the United Kingdom celebrates Remembrance Day. “It’s similar to veterans day, except 11 minutes after 11 we have a minute of silence for our veterans,” said Seddon. Then, with a smile, Seddon added “There’s also Pancake Day, it’s the day before Ash Wednesday, everyone uses all their eggs, flour and milk and make pancakes. It’s called Shrove Tuesday.”

One group of international students that are often overlooked as internationals are the Canadian students on campus. While some of them live close enough to be able to travel home for the weekend if they wish, they still experience the feelings of not being “at home.” Canadian Thanksgiving takes place on the second Monday of November. Senior Sarah Munkittrick said, “It would be nice if October break could be extended to a week so we could celebrate Thanksgiving with our families.” Munkittrick also said, “Houghton does do a lot for the Canadians during Thanksgiving; there’s a special meal, a chapel, and dessert at the Lucky’s. It’s just nice to be home though.”

While celebrating holiday’s away from home is something most international students have grown used to, it is not always easy. “After a while you can start to feel like a bit of an intrusion being at someone’s house for so long,” said Seddon. As Kim spoke about the challenges of being away from home he paused, then thoughtfully said “No one can listen as well and make my comfort food like my mom and there’s no one who loves me unconditionally.” With a slight chuckle, he added, “like my dogs.”

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News

Admissions Adopts New Recruitment Strategies

As the new recruiting season has begun, the admissions department has adopted new strategies to reach new students.

Courtesy of hcap.artstor.org
Courtesy of hcap.artstor.org

This past year enrollment fell just below the standard established by the college, resulting in some changes in the admissions department. The challenge this year will be to bring in more students previous years. Both the vice president and director of admissions are working on new strategies to reach the desired number of students for the start of the next fall semester.

“One of our fundamentals is in building strong relationships with applicants to tell the Houghton story and communicate the value of the experience they will have here,” said Director of Admissions, Ryan Spear. Throughout the past years Houghton has struggled with low enrollment numbers, thereby putting pressure on Admissions to develop new strategies which will draw new students into the college.

“We will be using strategic emails and telecounselors will be calling all interested applicants for events,” said Vice President for Admissions, Eric Currie. Currie also added that their travel reps would be on the road visiting over 300 high schools and over 150 fairs with the admissions counselors picking up the rest of the schools.

According to Spear, a typical day for an admissions counselor at Houghton involves focusing on encouraging applications from prospective students and working with students who have already applied. They accomplish this with conducting admission interviews as well as communication through emails, hand-written notes and calls via telephone.

Traveling admissions counselors, on the other hand, spend most of their time on the road visiting high schools. Depending on in which region they are traveling, these counselors will visit three to four high schools a day and usually a college fair at night. Stephen Zacchigna, traveling admissions counselor said, “I mostly work in New York State but Houghton covers the entire region from Indiana to Virginia to New England and most places in between.”

Current senior, Jennifer Newcombe said “My admissions counselor did a really good job of making me feel like Houghton really wanted me. I didn’t feel like I would be lost in the crowd.” Newcombe also said that, unlike other colleges, she felt a personal connection to Houghton through the emails and phone calls. She was also impressed with the way in which her acceptance letter arrived. “It came in a cool tube and the acceptance letter was very personalized.”

As well as trying more ways to reach out to potential students, the admissions office is also trying new ideas for visiting days. Spear said, “We are pushing back the start time for visitors so that a family could leave from a one- to two-hour radius of Houghton and arrive the morning of at a reasonable hour.” Spear also said they are focusing on running fewer visiting days while improving the efficiency and quality of the visits in general.

 

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New Dean of Extension Services

In hopes of expanding Houghton’s education opportunities, Scott McClelland has been hired as Dean of Extension Studies. McClelland will have an office in Buffalo and will be primarily located there when the adult education program is launched. In addition, he will be traveling back and forth to Houghton in order to work with faculty in exploring the college’s options for a potential online program for students who want a Houghton education but are not able to attend on campus.

Courtesy of Scott McClelland
Courtesy of Scott McClelland

Mark Hijleh, Associate Academic Dean said that “as Houghton considers how we will translate our mission of providing access to high-quality Christian Liberal Arts to students from diverse backgrounds, we need to expand the entry points to what we have to offer.”

Recently Houghton has had to make cuts in the areas of faculty, staff, and athletics. This leaves many wondering why a full time position is needed for this job. Academic Dean Linda Mills-Woolsey explained, “One of our current initiatives aimed at strengthening Houghton’s ability to serve a diverse range of students while creating a sustainable economy for all areas of the college is expanding our arena of vision and service.” Mills-Woolsey also stated, “to be a viable college for the current age we need to explore more ways to use online options to provide flexible access to Houghton College programs. In order to move forward we need someone to manage all our extension study endeavors.”

McClelland will be moving from southern Florida to Buffalo on October 7th in order to work with the Houghton City Semester program which is already underway.“Houghton is exploring how to best make its top tier education available to a wider group of students than it has traditionally,” said Dr. McClelland “So my work will be to explore several options to do this within the Adult Education, online and by offering some new teaching opportunities in Buffalo.”

McClelland has experience in extension studies from his time as the Director of the San Francisco Urban Program based out of Westmont College. He then gained more experience at Trinity College. “My experience with Westmont and Trinity allows me to know how special it is when a campus wishes to reach out to meet the needs of ‘non-traditional’ students by working through many delivery systems now available to higher education institutions like ours,” said McClelland.

Students currently attending Houghton could also benefit from the online program. Junior Glenn Hampson said “I’m thrilled that Houghton is looking into expanding their online education programs. I’m graduating this year, and although I want to continue my education, I got to start paying off my loans here pretty soon. If I could take classes offered by Houghton online, I would be able to fulfill my academic goals while sticking with the school I love.”

 The extension program is seen by many as a crucial next step for Houghton. Mills-Woolsey said, “In the long run we hope that investing in this position will provide benefits not only for our extension programs, but for students on the main campus, as our extension programs provide more visibility and accessibility while contributing revenues to the overall college.”