What Centre people are up to this summer: Part 4

RELEASED: August 14, 2008

DANVILLE, KY—As summer days dwindle and fall approaches, Centre College students are spending their vacations in a variety of places, engaging in innumerable activities—stretching their legs and minds, enhancing their experiences and their bank accounts. Here are just a few ways in which students are spending their summers. (Check out Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3!)

Alison Robbins, junior, Lakewood, N.Y.: I'm attending summer school at Harvard University. I live in the dorms on the fifth floor. I'm taking a journalism class and a creative writing class. I like both classes. My professor for journalism is from NPR news and produces the talk show "All Things Considered," and we have to read the New York Times and Boston Globe everyday. My professor for creative writing is extremely funny and outgoing.

I've met people from all over the world: Spain, England, Germany, Poland, Mexico, Australia, Singapore, Korea, Romania, Armenia, and many other intriguing and unusual places! Their cultures are so different from ours, and I've learned many different aspects of each culture that help me understand them better.

Boston is close to Cambridge, so I've been able to take advantage of the city. I've been to most of the historical places of Boston. The town is extremely historic, so there are plenty of things to learn about that are important parts of American culture. Independence Day here is huge because of the various events that occurred near Boston to spark the Revolutionary War. There's a huge Pops July 4th Celebration at the "Hatch Shell," a concert venue, that I was lucky enough to be able to attend for free. Also, I intend to go to Concord, Massachusetts, to see the homes of Emerson and Louisa May Alcott, as well as Thoreau's famous Walden Pond (I'm an English major).

Also, I've been able to see a variety of Centre students. I've visited people who attend Centre and are from Boston. A couple of my friends have visited. One of them visited over the weekend of the 4th of July, and another one is coming in a week.

Rachel Dawson, senior, Bel Air, Md.: The last couple weeks of May, I took a cross-country train ride out to the Bay Area of California. I started in Baltimore and continued through Chicago and Denver on the way out. Returning, I took a bus to L.A. and went through Arizona and New Mexico back to Chicago, etc. Seeing the actual land of America had been something I'd always wanted to do, and now I feel I can fully appreciate my country, what it looks like, what it smells like. Now I'm on campus reading Marcel Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu with Dr. Ken Keffer, Stodghill Professor of Modern Languages. We meet on a regular basis to discuss what I'm reading. Proust's work is so vast and beautiful that each day, I find he has refined my thinking and my life's perspective in merely allowing me to incessantly mull over his words. Most of all, I'm grateful for the opportunity this summer has given me to focus on more personal interests and pursue my own ideas to the fullest extent—even though, in a weird way, I still miss the bustle of the Centre semester when it's in full swing!  

Jessica Asher, junior, Brodhead, Ky.: I've been busy showing and riding my Tennessee Walking Horses and working at the Rockcastle Hospital and Respiratory Care Center in the in-patient pharmacy. I work as a technician and have learned about all kinds of medication.

Gray Hunter, sophomore, Ashland, Ky.: On the ten-hour car ride to the beach, I finally found the time to read the book Speeches that Changed the World, and ever since I read the first insert I've found it increasingly difficult to put the book down.

Hannah Brooks, sophomore, Hudsonville, Mich.: I'm spending this summer as a mentor for kids with special needs. It's super fun! I volunteer on Tuesdays and Thursdays at an organization called Compassionate Heart, and I pretty much hang out with the kids. We play sports, video games, watch movies, do crafts, and a bunch of other stuff for the day. It's amazing to see their social skills expand over just five hours. At the beginning of summer, I couldn't wait to get back to Centre. Now I can't stand the thought of leaving all of these newfound friends.

I was also a mentor at a weeklong project called Special Needs SERVE. It's through Youth Unlimited. All of the mentors are assigned to one volunteer for the entire week. I was assigned to a girl named Amy. Our daily schedule consisted of five hours of community service, a fun activity (like limo rides, motorcycle rides, going to a farm, going swimming) and worship. The first day, we all treated our volunteers as children. We would watch over them, we would help them get dressed and eat. However, as the week progressed we began to realize that they were helping us just as much. They taught us to enjoy the small moments in life, moments that we would call boring. They made us laugh when we felt that we had no energy left even to cry. While it was very stressful and draining (both mentally and physically) to be around one special needs child for an entire week, it was also very rewarding.

These kids usually don't have a chance to do "normal" things. They don't have friends to call up and talk to. They don't have jobs to take up some of their time. Both of these opportunities give them a chance to experience life as a kid. They have a chance to hang out, to laugh, and to take part in everyday life. I find it amazing to watch these kids embrace every moment of the times that I take for granted.

Karen Ellestad, senior, Frankfort, Ky.: I recently completed four chapters of a country-music textbook with my two dear friends, Clayton Willis Carden '09 and Dr. Nathan Link, assistant professor of music. The three of us have spent the last two months researching country greats—Bill Monroe, Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, Flatt and Scruggs, and Loretta Lynn are only a few of the artists we have examined—and analyzing the musical ins and outs of Nashville's long legacy, ranging from the singles of the Stanley Brothers to Townes Van Zandt's "Pancho and Lefty." The chronological wingspan of the text, if it is indeed funded by any of the several publishing houses we have contacted, will reach from the first appearance of the banjo on North American shores to the most recent country-music commentaries on the Iraq War. In addition to expanding and enriching this work-in-progress, our trio has uncovered innumerable fascinating facts and figures along the way that could blow your socks off (Dolly Parton's cup size and Steve Earle's nickname for Shania Twain are among these delicious tidbits).

When I've not been reading or writing about country and bluegrass music, of course, I've been listening to it live. Clayton and Dr. Link have been recording and performing their own repertoire of excellent music, which incorporates both self-written pieces and the great musical pillars of the genre, like "The Fields Have Turned Brown" and "My Cabin in Caroline." Though not a gifted musician myself, I was even invited as a cameo singer to a 'cl8 and n8' gig in Frankfort (does 'In the hiiiiiiiiighways, in the heeeeedges' ring a bell?).

Sunil Ramaswamy, junior, Prospect, Ky.: I'm doing research at Kansas University again. I'm doing assay development for microbial pathogenesis, neurotoxicity, and vaccine stabilization. We were looking to develop a microscopy-based method to measure infection and bacterial spread among cells. These assays will be used to screen vaccine efficacy and an in vitro model of vaginal Chlamydia infection.

I'm also in the process of developing a neurotoxicity experiment where we'll be looking at developing an assay of the neurotoxcicty of heavy metals. We're working with fetal rats to see what kind of effects different heavy metals have on neurotoxicity.

And we have a TEM here that can image down to single carbon atoms. And I got to be one of the first people to see a novel human adenovirus subtype up close and personal. All in all, it's been a pretty awesome summer.

Maria Kennedy, sophomore, Louisville: I was an RA for the Governor's Scholars Program here at Centre. It was a wonderful experience.

Britt Coppola, sophomore, Louisville: I'm interning at BMO Capital Marketsin downtown Chicago. I've helped research what companies the bank has relationships with in the United States and outside the United States to determine geographically what places in the world they should look to for growth. Living downtown with my aunt has been a great experience! There's so much to see and do. I've gone to countless festivals and fairs and museums, as well as walked around the Lake Front and visited my family who lives here.

Rhiannon Ledgerwood, senior, Stony Brook, N.Y.: This summer I'm at the Medical College of Wisconsin working as a lab technician. The research we are doing involves important research on cholesterol metabolism in the body. Here in Milwaukee I got to also attend Summerfest, the world's largest music festival.

Annie Stephens, junior, Greenville, S.C.: I'm interning in Tampa, Fla., as a reporter/producer for the National Public Radio affiliate, WUSF 89.7 radio. I write and voice stories for air, research story topics, produce and edit sound, and do field and telephone interviews for air. Right now the story I'm working on is about the effect of the sub-prime mortgage issue on Hispanic/non-English speaking members of the Tampa Bay area.

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Founded in 1819, Centre College is ranked among the U.S. News top 50 national liberal arts colleges. Consumers Digest ranks Centre No. 1 in educational value among all U.S. liberal arts colleges. Centre alumni, known for their nation-leading loyalty in annual financial support, include two U.S. vice presidents and two Supreme Court justices. For more, visit http://www.centre.edu/web/elevatorspeech/

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