PEL ENACTUS team headed to national conference

by Anne W. Anderson
Photos by Anne W. Anderson
or courtesy of Yolanda Carter

The Enactus team of (l-r) Yolanda Carter '17, Dorie Michalik '16, Professor Naveen Malhotra (advisor), Tonya Zalick '18, and Andi Gordon '16 celebrate their regional victory.

They wrote grants, developed marketing plans and tools, provided innovative programs at a number of local non-profit organizations, produced reports, and created a video presentation which they entered in the regional level of a nationwide competition judged by business representatives from major corporations. Now, having been named regional champions, Carter, Zalick, and Gordon are headed to the Enactus United States National Competition in St. Louis, Mo., on May 16-18. Dorie Michalik is unable to attend.

Dorie Michalik and Yolanda Carter work on the Powerpoint presentation.

They are Yolanda Carter, Andrea "Andi" Gordon, Dorice "Dorie" Michalik, and Tonya Zalick, students in Students in a Free Enterprise (SIFE), one of Professor Naveen Malhotra's senior seminar business management courses. As part of the course, they and other classmates each proposed a short-term project working with a local non-profit organization and then worked in teams of two to complete the projects and to give progress reports in class.

"We assisted our partner with making contact with potential audience members, looking for locations to present, and so on," Tonya Zalick wrote in an email interview. Zalick will be the Eckerd Enactus chapter president for the 2016-2017 academic year.

After the course ended, Malhotra offered interested students the opportunity to be part of an extra-curricular activity that involved putting together a presentation about the projects and presenting it, virtually, at the Enactus Regional Competition in April.

One of many planning sessions involved in preparing the entry.

"Most adult undergraduate programs don't have extra-curricular activities, but I feel it is an important part of the college experience," explained Malhotra, who has advised teams since 1995.

Trophies and other awards--including the key to the City of St. Petersburg--line his office, but the excitement in his voice as he talks about the projects students have completed suggests Malhotra's motivation for encouraging his students to participate is not winning trophies but watching PEL students discover ways they can use the business skills they are honing to help the larger community.

"And they do the work in eight weeks, then prepare their presentations during the next eight weeks," Malhotra said. "Other teams work all year on their projects and presentations."

Carter, Gordon, Michalik, and Zalick volunteered. They reviewed the eight projects that had been completed in the course, selected four to showcase in an annual report, and then began preparing their entry.

Materials Andi Gordon created for Pinellas Hope.

Enactus--Entrepreneurial Action Us--is an international organization involving more than 48,000 undergraduate and graduate students who "create community development projects that put people's own ingenuity and talents at the center of improving their lives," according to the 2016 Team Handbook.

Volunteer judges are professionals working for major corporations. They assess each team's effectiveness in seeing opportunity (including conducting a needs assessment), taking entrepreneurial action, and enabling progress by measuring direct and indirect outcomes that empower people and improve livelihoods in a sustainable way. Teams also receive feedback on their ability to communicate their projects and the results.

This year, communicating took a virtual turn. Recognizing that travel costs prohibited some teams from participating, the organization created a virtual regional in addition to regionals held in six cities across the continental United States. But it meant that, in addition to creating a Powerpoint presentation, the team also had to find a way to film the presentation.

Andi Gordon said it was a challenge. "Preparing a presentation with multiple content areas/speakers is almost always a major undertaking," Gordon wrote in an email interview. "But when you add the element of filming, editing, synchronizing with Powerpoint, and the expanded technology needs, the focus can shift from the content of your presentation to just delivering a usable "package.'"

Dorie Michalik noted she is used to moving around as she presents to a live audience. "Having to stand in one place as the team's presentation was videotaped was a challenge for me personally," she wrote in an email interview. 

The team met most Wednesday evenings during Spring 2 to work on the project. Towards the end, however, other meetings were added. The night before the filming, the group worked until midnight then were back on campus for an early-morning camera date.

"It was a lot of hours," Gordon wrote.

PEL Enactus projects

Yolanda Carter helps install a community garden at CASA.

The projects included in this year's showcase were:

CASA (Community Action Stops Abuse): Yolanda Carter obtained a $1,500 Partnership Workforce Development grant from WalMart's Women's Economic Empowerment Project to create materials for two workshops (employment readiness training and money management skills), which she termed EMPOWER (Encourage, Motivate, Prepare & Organize Women's Economic Readiness) workshops, presented to CASA clients. She also used funds to create a community garden that CASA clients will maintain to provide fresh produce to the residents.

Community Leveraged Learning (CLL): Dorie Michalik presented fellow SIFE student Lori Pinkerton's project, as Lori was not able to commit to the extra hours involved. Lori built a website for Community Leveraged Learning, an organization that provides writing workshops for children and for teachers. In addition to teaching writing skills, CLL also publishes finished work, validating children's creativity and helping teachers produce thematic units they can use in their classrooms. 

Pinellas Hope: A project of the Diocese of St. Petersburg and Catholic Charities, Pinellas Hope is replacing the "tent city" created to shelter people without homes with modular units made of shipping crates. Andi Gordon created marketing materials, including a multi-page case statement for the organization's funding initiative, for the dedication of Phase 2 of the project. She created the materials using templates that Pinellas Hope can reuse for future events and developed a media engagement plan including press release guidelines and timelines.

Re-emerge at Westminster Palms: Ten residents at Westminster Palms, a St. Petersburg retirement community, had been taking art classes from an instructor who came to the center each week and some were displaying their work in the lobbies of the buildings. Tonya Zalick, who works at Westminster Palms, felt the community was missing out on seeing the residents' works, and she knew residents were equally isolated from the larger art community in the area. Ekcerd Enactus coordinated with organizers of the Saturday Art Walk in Gulfport to allow the senior artists to re-emerge by showing their art at the public event. They also created a network of restaurant and shop owners interested in having individual artists display their work.

Takeaways, Tips, and Testimonials

 

All four team members agreed the project took a lot of time and stretched their skills.

"This is not something you can do well with little effort," Michalik cautioned. "Make sure you have the time and ability to give the project and the competition your all."

But each member also said the time was well spent.

"The best experience was the responses from the women who appreciated the information we provided during the workshops as well as the residents' reactions to the garden boxes being finished," Carter wrote.

Zalick agreed. "The best moment was seeing the faces of the [Re-emerge artists] when complete and total strangers offered to buy their artwork," she wrote. "They did not think that their paintings were of any value to anyone, and for them to see that they touched other people was eye-opening to them."

Zalick also said she is more aware now of the needs in the community and also of "the many, many organizations, people and groups who are doing what they can to make a difference in the lives of others."

Representatives of some of the communities helped said the short-term projects left a lasting impact.

Louis Ricardo, Catholic Charities' marketing and development manager, noted that Gordon did more than just provide detailed marketing materials.

"She was simply an excellent sounding board for me in general as I am new to both Pinellas County and the non-profit industry," Ricardo wrote, adding that he looked forward to working with her in the future.

Westminster Palms resident David Dumin said in a telephone interview that he didn't plan to pursue marketing his artwork. "But it was nice to watch the people enjoying our work," he said of the Art Walk event. "And I know others in the group are interested in being more involved."

Trace Taylor, founder and CEO of Community Leveraged Learning, said the website built by Enactus has helped CLL to present itself more professionally, which is important as they begin to provide teacher training to local schools and to apply for grants.

"They saved us, is what they did," Taylor said.

 
In addition to being PEL students and participating in Enactus, the team members each work full time. Yolanda Carter recently accepted a position in the Center for Conflict Dynamics and Mediation Training Institute at Eckerd College; Andi Gordon is the St. Petersburg Retail Advertising Manager for the Tampa Bay Times; Dorie Michalick is the Assistant Director of Product Management for the Center for Conflict Dynamics and Mediation Training Institute at Eckerd College; and Tonya Zalick works at Westminster Palms, a Continued Care Retirement Community in St. Petersburg. 

Anne W. Anderson is PEL's director of blended and online learning.

The Ice House cometh! New entrepreneurial mindset course debuts in Fall 2016

 by Amanda Hagood
photo by Anne W. Anderson

Professor James Welch recently developed several new courses.

An exciting new course debuts in the PEL course schedule this fall: Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset, which will be taught by Professor James Welch. The course will explore, through multiple case studies, the role that entrepreneurial thinking plays in many aspects of life--not just in starting a business.

PEL Associate Dean of Faculty Margret Skaftadottir explained that this course also is part of a larger effort to develop a new, more socially-minded focus in entrepreneurship that seeks to address community needs. Welch and Frank Hamilton, Eckerd professor of management in the residential program, recently submitted several course proposals to the College Council. All, including Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset, were approved and will be phased in over the next few terms. 

Diana Fuguitt, professor of economics, and Heather Vincent, associate professor of classics, also worked with Skaftadottir and Hamilton over the past few months to explore the connections between social entrepreneurship and a liberal arts education. Designed to be an interdisciplinary program that fosters the vision, creativity, and practical business skills that lead to innovative social change, Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship is listed among the goals in the proposed five-year Strategic Plan that will be presented to the Board of Trustees in May.

"These courses give PEL students majoring in Business Management or Organizational Studies two new focus areas from which to choose -- Entrepreneurship or Social Entrepreneurship," Skaftadottir said.

Entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial thinking

Hamilton gave Habitat for Humanity as an example of social entrepreneurship that found innovative solutions to the problem of how to make owning a home affordable to people whose incomes weren't high enough to qualify them for most mortgages.

Additionally, students in any major who have room for an elective course might find courses like Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset useful. Welch, who brings experience from multiple arenas including non-profit and investment management as well as military leadership into his teaching, believes the course will be of value to students with a wide variety of experience and aims.

"We talk about developing traits like recognizing opportunities, being resourceful, and being tenacious," Welch said.

The Ice House concept

 

The course is inspired by the work of Clifton Taulbert, a Mississippi-born business consultant who chronicled his own rise to success in Who Owns the Ice House? Eight Life Lessons from an Unlikely Entrepreneur. In a world shaped and limited by legalized segregation, Taulbert absorbed the entrepreneurial spirit and wisdom of his Uncle Cleve, who owned the only ice house for miles around their home community. Students will use stories of everyday entrepreneurs like Uncle Cleve to envision and test entrepreneurial ideas that would benefit their own communities.

These “ice house” lessons became the basis for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s Ice House Entrepreneurship Program, upon which the course is built.

Welch attended a three-day facilitator training program last month, which was sponsored and organized by the Entrepreneurial Learning Initiative in partnership with Hillsborough Community College (HCC) and the Entrepreneur Collaborative Center, a partner of HCC. Welch's attendance was supported by members of the Academy of Senior Professionals (ASPEC) at Eckerd College.

ASPEC member Ernie Mahaffey, who leads an entrepreneurial group within ASPEC working with the Urban League, the City of St. Petersburg, and other organizations and who also founded the Center for Business Education, Innovation, and Development in northern Illinois, said in a phone interview that Eckerd College's entrepreneurial programs will strengthen ASPEC's work in the community.

"It's the small companies that create new jobs a few at a time," Mahaffey said in a phone interview.

Still, Mahaffey noted that entrepreneurship should not be seen as a "quick fix" to social and economic problems.

"Entrepreneurial ideas take time to develop -- it's done one foot in front of the other," Mahaffey said.

Hamilton said the program is a good fit for Eckerd. "We create students who want to make a difference. Now we have a way to show people how to make change happen, " Hamilton explained. 

Hamilton also noted that insider understanding of business and government systems can be very helpful in finding innovative ways to effect change. "PEL students often come to Eckerd with that kind of understanding," he said. 

Everyone an entrepreneur

“In today’s world,” Welch reflected in an interview, “everyone has to be, in some sense, an entrepreneur.”

He explained that, while in past decades employees might reasonably have expected to stay with the same company for an entire career, today’s shifting labor market has pushed many to continually reinvent themselves across multiple positions at multiple organizations.

Similarly, more businesses have begun to think in an entrepreneurial way, looking at creative, community-focused ways of solving problems.

Hamilton also noted that artists, musicians, and scientists often use entrepreneurial thinking in creating their work and need entrepreneurial skills in promoting it.  

"One of our alumni is a biologist who wondered about the effect of sunscreen and other body products on marine life," Hamilton said. "Entrepreneurial thinking led her to have the idea for the research and to the practical development of a line of products that is not harmful to the marine environment."

The course will challenge common perceptions about entrepreneurship, illustrating that most entrepreneurs do not follow the meteoric path of a Mark Zuckerburg or a Bill Gates. The course also contests the myth that all entrepreneurs start young, as the majority of today’s entrepreneurs are 40 years and older.

With featured lessons on developing persistence, putting ideas into action, and taking manageable risks, the course could benefit students in many different disciplines, Welch said. Assignments such as pitching a business idea to 50 people in the space of one week, should push many students out of their comfort zones and develop their capacities for critical and creative thinking.

The courses in each focus area include:

Entrepreneurship: Principles of Entrepreneurship; Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset; Venture Creation; and Entrepreneurial Creativity and Innovation. 

Social Entrepreneurship: Social Entrepreneurship; Principles of Entrepreneurship OR Entrepreneurial Creativity and Innovation; Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset; Grant Development

Professor James Welch holds advanced degrees in education, business, management, law, and theology. He also is an Army Reserve chaplain, holding the rank of colonel.  Amanda Hagood is PEL's executive director. 

Writing services for all PEL students

by Anne W. Anderson

Left: Kathleen Winterberg (r) at the Phi Alpha Theta induction ceremony. Photo by Catherine Griggs

Kathleen Winterberg, an American Studies senior who plans to graduate in May, had plenty of college experience when she started taking courses at Eckerd College. She already had earned a bachelor's degree in organizational management from a college in New York. But then she moved to Florida, began working at Eckerd, and discovered that a couple of her co-workers were taking PEL classes.

When she started taking some of Professor Catherine Griggs' American Studies courses, she found the history she had hated before came alive.

"Dr. Griggs is phenomenal," she said in a phone interview. "The way she presents the material is incredible. My goal now is to tutor homeless children and to help them like history -- not to resent it, like I did."

But Winterberg found the writing a challenge. It wasn't that she didn't know how to write. For her previous degree, she had even written a 35-40 page thesis paper.


"But none of it prepared me for what I found at Eckerd," Winterberg said in a phone interview. She explained that her previous major required a different kind of writing that included lots of charts and graphs and other visuals. She felt lost when it came to integrating multiple academic articles into a research paper.

"I didn't know how to write about reading," Winterberg said.

Above: Alaina Tackitt, PEL academic advisor and director of writing services, and Craig Anderson, Tampa campus office manager and PEL academic writing coach, meet at the Tampa campus office. Photo by Kathy McDonald.

Tracy Bohannon, who also plans to graduate later this month, said she also thought she was a good writer when she came to Eckerd.

"I had written grants, had done technical writing such as writing policies and procedures manuals, and had done some creative writing," Bohannon said in a telephone interview. But, she said, the thought of submitting a writing exhibit "paralyzed me. I was really nervous."

Like Winterberg, Bohannon said she had never encountered this kind of analytic writing before. "I had never outlined anything before," Bohannon said. 

That's not unusual, according to Margret Skaftadottir, Associate Dean of Faculty for PEL, explaining that Eckerd College's approach to teaching college-level writing has always been different from most other colleges and universities.

A selection of books on writing pulled from Patti Cooksey's and Anne Anderson's office shelves.

"Instead of having students take one or maybe two freshman composition courses and then never having any more writing instruction, Eckerd has always intended that writing be an important part of every major," Skaftadottir said. "By the end of their college experience, students are expected to be proficient in several different types of writing."

Because Winterberg and Bohannon were being asked to write in ways different from what they were used to, it was not easy.

Winterberg said she had been embarrassed to ask for help. "But you can't be," she emphasized. "You have to reach out and ask." 

At Professor Griggs' suggestion, Winterberg contacted Alaina Tackitt, PEL's director of writing services, and Tackitt, whose in-process dissertation focuses on adult composition, showed her a step-by-step method that Winterberg said, "took the fear out of writing an essay."

Writing services for PEL students at every stage of writing

PEL students use Diana Hacker's style manual.

Tackitt said she and Craig Anderson, Tampa campus office manager and PEL academic writing coach, help students at all stages of writing.

"Writing support for students isn't just about helping them fix their papers after they've gotten a bad grade," Tackitt explained. "We also help students get started and think about how to organize their information."

Anderson '15, who earned his Human Development degree through PEL and who minored in Creative Writing, said many students wait until the last minute to ask for writing help, whether it is a paper for a class or a paper for the Writing Competency Exhibit.

"I usually can respond within 24 hours to a student who emails me a paper or who shares one on Google Docs," Anderson said. But, he noted, that doesn't allow the time the student needs to reflect on the comments he makes, to decide on what action to take, and to revise the paper accordingly.

"It also helps if they send us the instructions so we can be sure what they have written fulfills the assignment," Anderson added.

Bohannon said she was concerned because she didn't feel she had written an argumentative paper, one of the four required genres. But when she met with Anderson, he looked through all the papers she had written and helped her see how they could be tweaked to meet the requirements.

Bohannon attended the workshop Tackitt and Anderson offer each term, and she also met with Anderson three or four times. "He helped me develop the papers more fully, made suggestions about references and mechanics, and helped me understand the purpose of the annotations," she said.

The Tampa campus is located at 1300 Westshore Blvd.

While writing support can be provided via email, Winterberg found she needed to sit down with Tackitt and work more extensively. So she drove to the Tampa campus on Westshore Blvd. and found not just writing help but also a quiet place in which to work.

There, Tackitt showed Winterberg how to start by writing out the citations for each article she was using then writing one sentence about each article.

"It didn't even have to be a whole sentence," Winterberg explained. "But I also wrote down the page number of where I found the information so I could go back and find it again later."

After repeating this process a few times, Winterberg said Tackitt showed her how to frame the sentences and then to organize and combine them into the basis of a paper.

"I had been ready to give up," Winterberg said. "But Alaina gave me the tools I needed to go forward with my writing."

Next Writing Workshop and Writing Exhibit Due Dates

 The next writing exhibit workshop will be held Thursday, May 26, from 6:00 - 7:30 p.m. on the main campus in FT210. Writing exhibit submissions are due June 20. 

Tackitt and Anderson can be contacted at 813-282-0002 or by emailing tackitad@eckerd.edu. Anne W. Anderson is PEL's director of blended and online learning.

PEL Alumnus Trevor D. Harvey '07 working with Newtown Conservation Historic District project

by Julee Breehne
Photos courtesy of Trevor Harvey and 
the Newtown Conservation Historic District project 

Trevor D. Harvey '07 serves the Sarasota community in many ways.

When Trevor Harvey '07 completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Management in 2006, he was already decorated with a host of personal and professional accomplishments. So much so that, in 2007, he was recognized as one of Sarasota's "New 100" in terms of making things happen. He hasn't stopped, either.

This past January, Harvey and other members of the Newtown Citizen Historic Task Force charged with working with Vicki Oldham, consultant developing the Newtown Conservation Historic District Project (NCHD) were recognized when the project was awarded the 2016 Sarasota MLK Community Service Award.  Through research and oral testimonials, the group is working to preserve the history of the area’s African American community.

Harvey, a native Sarasotan and a product of Newtown, gained more than he expected during the research phase of the project.

Trevor's grandfather, Nathaniel Harvey

“I learned things about the history of my own family that were new to me,” Harvey said in an interview. Harvey's grandfather, Nathaniel Harvey, who at one time worked in the celery fields when celery was grown in the Sarasota area, was one of more than 25 long-time Newtown residents who were interviewed for the first phase of the project.

The interviews were video-recorded and will be made available online. Several videos about the development of the project have already been uploaded to a YouTube channel, Sarasota Newtown.

Oldham said in an email interview that the research team will deliver a report to the City of Sarasota on May 16. Phase 2 plans for using the information collected from researching the African American community's 100-year history include developing a walking tour and an historic map.

The research team includes Dr. Rosalyn Howard, retired University of Central Florida cultural anthropologist, with whom Oldham worked on another project, Looking for Angola: The Search for an 1800's Black Settlement. 

When asked about how his most recent MLK Community Service Award reflects Martin Luther King Jr.’s work, Harvey pointed to a focus on preserving cross-generational communication among minorities in order to prepare a new generation of people who are ready to give back.

Harvey has been working as Student Development Adviser at the Bradenton campus of State College of Florida (SCF) since 2008, but his work in the community goes back many more years.  He serves as the NAACP Chapter President, a Teamster Trailblazer and, in 2015, earned a Congressional award for his commitment to strengthening the relationship between law enforcement and the residents of Newtown.

Dr. Helen Meyer, director of the former Sarasota PEL center, remembered Harvey as "a dedicated student who, like most PEL students then, juggled work, family, and his faith." A couple of years after Harvey graduated from Eckerd and after Meyer had moved on to become the Associate Vice President for Student Development at SCF, the two reconnected and Meyer suggested he apply for a position at SCF's Venice campus.

"I knew the determination Trevor had as a PEL student would serve him well as our enrollment was booming," Meyer said in an email interview.

Harvey credits PEL with deepening his outreach efforts.“I was already very involved in my community, but completing my degree launched me to the next level,” he said.

He has fond memories of his time in PEL, and especially for his Life, Learning and Vocation instructor Iris Gonzalez, who has since died.

“She had such a passion for mentoring the adult student,” Harvey recalled.

The love of learning Harvey developed on the path to finishing his bachelor’s degree continues and has resulted in leadership development training through the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, certificates through National Academic Advising Association (NACADA). When asked what drives him each day and inspires his success, Harvey points to gratitude.

“My worst day is a good day,” he said.

More information about the Newtown Conservation Historic District project can be found in a February 2016 article in the Polk edition (page 21) of Lifestyles After 50, "Keeping Newtown Alive."

Julee Breehne has worked as one of PEL's admission counselors since 2007

PEL Honors Program presents panel in Orlando

Participating students included (l-r) Yadira Montes-Rivera, Lora Vineberg, Michelle Kiekenapp Nelson, Daryl Osburn, Dean Lloyd Chapin, Scott Maxwell, Andrew Latimer, Noel Lake, and Andrew (A. J.) O’Connell.  Professor Lloyd Chapin and Honors Director Catherine Griggs accompanied the students.

Students from the 2015-16 Program for Experienced Learners (PEL) Honors Program presented a panel titled Politics and Prose: Honors Texts and Contemporary Issues at the Magic of Honors 2016 Southern Regional Honors Council Conference held in Orlando from March 31-April 2. 

Student presentations explored the ways that engaging great texts empower honors students to achieve excellence in the world, particularly in the highly charged environment of a political campaign year. Dean Chapin moderated the panel.

After a successful, well-attended panel presentation, the group relaxed in a Cuban restaurant in Orlando.

The PEL Honors Program is designed for students who appreciate challenging coursework, are willing to take on in-depth projects, enjoy discussing complicated material, and engaging in scholarly discussions.

The Southern Regional Honors Council provides students the opportunity to interact with honors program students from eleven Southeastern states and Puerto Rico.

Tampa campus office manager wins Creative Loafing award

Craig Anderson '15 with Professor Helen Wallace at the awards event.

by Anne W. Anderson

photo by Alaina Tackitt

Craig Anderson '15, PEL's Tampa campus office manager and PEL academic writing coach,  has won the Readers' Pick Award for Fiction in Creative Loafing's 2016 Writing Contest  for his story "Lucky Stars". This year's contest attracted more than a hundred stories and poems, each addressing the theme of Green.

Fiction judge and local novelist Sheree L. Greer, commented that in Anderson's story, "which made it to my personal top three . . . green was about a rebirth and an implicit challenge to discover. The main character, Frankie-but-not-really, learned lessons in aim — from the misfire of a dart to the deliberate stroke of a thumb."

Creative Loafing editor David Warner read the fiction entries and selected the top ten, which he then sent on to Greer. Greer, who also teaches creative writing, composition, and literature courses at St. Petersburg College, selected first, second, and third place winners. (Read Greer's thoughts about the fiction entries HERE.)

All poetry entries were read by St. Petersburg Poet Laureate and Eckerd professor Helen Pruitt Wallace, who made her selections. (Read Wallace's thoughts about the poetry entries HERE.)

How does a green ninja turtle figure in to Anderson's story?

Additionally, the top ten entries in both categories also were posted on line for readers to choose their favorites. Winners and finalists were feted at a Reading and Issue Release Party on March 16 -- hence the Green theme -- at Creative Loafing's event venue, CL Space, in Ybor City.

Not only was Anderson's story readers' favorite, it also inspired the artwork for the March 17 issue cover, which contained the article about the contest winners.

Anderson, who graduated last year from Eckerd College's Program for Experienced Learners with a degree in Human Development and then returned for a minor in Creative Writing, has been accepted to Arcadia University's low-residency Creative Writing MFA program. He begins this August with a session in Philadelphia and travels, for the 2017 session, to Edinburgh, Scotland. Anderson's work also has appeared in Glitterwolf Magazine (issue 5), The Legendary (October 2014), and the 2014 Eckerd Review.

Anne W. Anderson is PEL's director of blended and online learning.

Out and About; Alumni News; Faculty/Staff News

Left: Julee Breehne, PEL admission counselor, attended a Transfer Fair for students who have earned their A.A. and are considering their next-step options. Pictured with Julee is Steve Ford, St. Petersburg College's Workforce Internship Program coordinator who also was working the fair, which was held on the Tarpon Springs Campus of St. Petersburg College. Julee and Kathy McDonald, PEL's director of admission and recruitment, attend similar education and career events on an almost weekly basis.

Right: Eckerd PEL's display at the GROW Financial Federal Credit Union Education Fair sponsored by the Tampa Bay Higher Education Alliance, of which Eckerd College PEL is a member.

Kathy McDonald, PEL's director of admission and recruitment, attended the fair, which was held in Tampa on May 4.

Alumni News

 

Forest Balderson '13 (Creative Writing) was honored recently when his poem "Dancing to Death" was selected for inclusion in plain china, the national literary review of undergraduate creative expression. The poem was first published in the 2015 Eckerd Review. Balderson currently is pursuing a master's degree in non-profit management and philanthropy at Bay Path University in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. 

Ed Mahon '86 (Business Management), who subsequently earned a doctorate in management (DM) from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and an MBA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has written a new book, Transitioning the Enterprise to the Cloud: A Business Approach. More formally, Dr. Edward G. Mahon is the Vice President for Information Services and Chief Information Officer for Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.

Teresa Mast '15 (Business Management) has filed for the District 2 seat on the Sarasota County School Board. Mast was the 2015 PEL Commencement speaker.

Note: An alumni class includes all students who graduated between June of one year and May of the next year. For example, students who graduated in August 2015 are considered part of the Class of 2016.

What's new with you? Share your good news two ways:

• Share your personal and professional updates by emailing us at pelsuccess@eckerd.edu. We reserve the right to format announcements to fit style and other considerations. 
• Share Instagram Photos via live update on the Eckerd Alumni Engagement page by including the #EckerdNotes hashtag. 

Faculty/Staff News

Professor James Welch earned, this past month, a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction through the College of Education at the University of South Florida, Tampa. Welch's dissertation was titled "Developing Ethical Leadership in the Post-Enron World: An Analysis of Business Ethics Education in National Liberal Arts Colleges in the United States" Welch holds advanced degrees in business management, business administration, theology and law. Welch, a Command Chaplain with the Army Reserve, also recently was promoted to the rank of colonel.

PEL alumnae Renee Hamad '10 and Mary Miller '97 honored

Renee Hamad '10 with Eckerd College President Donald Eastman III.

On March 5, 2016, at the Alumni Award Breakfast, two PEL alumnae received awards from President Donald Eastman and Professor Catherine Griggs on behalf of the Women’s Resources Committee.

Renee Hamad ‘10 received the WRC Gender Justice Award. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of PEL. Renee served her internship at the Women’s Resource Center of Sarasota County and became so engaged in helping the women who used the center that she continued to volunteer and offer material support after the internship ended. She was the President from 2012-14 and continues to serve on its board.

Currently Renee is working to fund and establish more scholarships for the Daughters for Life Foundation, which offers awards and scholarships "to young women of any Middle Eastern nationality or background, whether Arab or Israeli, and regardless of religious affiliation, whether Muslim, Jewish, or Christian. Our goal is to invest in their potential for leadership and foster their success in whatever fields they choose to pursue."

With her daughter, a medical doctor, Renee recently sponsored a fundraiser in Sarasota that raised money for two scholarships, and she plans to continue this work

(l-r) Prof. Catherine Griggs, Mary Miller '97, and EC President Donald Eastman III.

Mary Miller ‘97 received the WRC Professional Achievement Award. Mary Miller is a graduate of PEL and has been a trustee of Eckerd College for many years. She was instrumental in inspiring the foundation of alumni chapters in PEL, of sponsoring events to bring alumni, faculty, and students together, of organizing a tennis tournament to raise funds, of sponsoring a scholarship and loan program, and of instituting the David and Blanche Colgan Memorial Prize for a graduating PEL student.

In nominating her for an alumni award, a PEL student wrote: “Mary Miller for her tremendous dedication to PEL students and Eckerd College.”

In 2004 Mary and Dan Miller pledged a gift to Eckerd College that resulted in the complete renovation of the Dan and Mary Miller auditorium, making it a premier venue for film. Mary has been a longtime supporter of film programs at Eckerd College.

2016 PEL Alumni Reception Photos

TechnoTips: 3 ways to help promote PEL on Facebook

by Anne W. Anderson

PEL changes lives! We know that, but what can we do to help spread the word? Tell someone.

A 1980s shampoo commercial started out with one woman telling two friends about her great shampoo. They told two other friends who each told two other friends . . . until, before long, the screen was filled with women using the product.

Today, we have other ways to tell friends. And, even if you only have a few Facebook friends and hardly ever post anything, you can still help PEL share the good news about the program. Here are three easy ways:

First: Find and Like the Program for Experienced Learners Facebook page

Log in to your Facebook page. In the searchbar at the top of the page (big red oval in the image to the left), type in Program for Experienced Learners and click the magnifying glass (search icon) or click Return/Enter.


As the second image (right) shows, you may not have to type the entire name. If a drop-down menu with a link to the PEL page appears (see red arrow) just click on the link.

The PEL Facebook page (below) should appear.

Yes! The PEL program has its own Facebook page!

Currently, we have 931 people who have Liked the page by clicking on the Like button (circled in red).

If you Like the page, then when PEL's social media managers Craig Anderson and Janice Writt post something to the PEL page, the post will show up someplace on your timeline page, the page you see when you open Facebook.


How this helps: The more people who Like the PEL page, the more seriously Facebook treats PEL posts.

This means people who have Liked the page are more apt to see the posts at the top of their timeline page, and it means the Eckerd PEL page might start appearing on the right rail of other people's screens. In other words, it helps PEL get more exposure.

 

Second: Like and Comment on posts. 

Like: When you see a post from PEL on your timeline, Like it (see the red circled area in the image to the right) by clicking on the Like word/icon. Nothing special happens on your page, but it tells Facebook people are paying attention.

If the post contains a link to one of our newsletters, click on the link and read the article -- or not.

Comment: Even better, leave a Comment. Even a couple of words like "Great news!" or "This sounds like good information." or even an emoticon face will add weight to the post. The post also may appear on some of your friends' timelines with a small note that says you commented on this post. Now you not only have told us you saw the post but you also have begun to help your friends see the post . . . kind of like posting a note on a bulletin board.

How this helps: Liking a post does two things: It helps keep our social media managers from feeling lonely and lets them know people are paying attention. It also helps Facebook take the post more seriously so more people see it.  Commenting on a post takes the sharing one step further and creates a bulletin-board post on your timeline page.

Third: Share a post.

Click on Share and you deliberately place the post on your timeline page. Now the post appears more prominently, and it is more likely that your friends may Like or Comment on it, too. Check out these two articles to learn more about the differences in effect between Likes, Comments, and Shares. Want more information about the math behind how Facebook weights posts? Read this article about EdgeRank.

Tell a friend -- or two or 2000+ -- about PEL!

1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128 + 256 + 512 + 1024 = 2047 people reached in just 10 interactions

Anne W. Anderson is PEL's director of blended and online learning.