October 15, 2007
THON: a PSU tradition
Continued from page 1
THON’s success is also known for
its separation of responsibilities.
Some of the groups that make up this
organization are Public Relations,
Family Relations, Marketing, Club
Relations and more!
Mini Thon is a 24-hour event
that allows dancers to prepare for
THON by taking on the same level
of enthusiasm for dancing, raising
money and helping hundreds of
Photo by MARIN BENDORITIS/Capita! Times
A mass of students crowded the Bryce Jordan Center last Feb. for THON
2007. Students spend from Oct. to Feb. fundraising for the event.
families. The THON finale is held
at THON’s home, the Jordan Bryce
Center, throughout the weekend of
Feb. 22 to 24 and,is a huge weekend
filled with thousands of guests,
speakers, entertainment, music and
charity. At this event, sponsored
families have children come up on
stage and thank THON members for
making it all worth it for them.
Penn State Harrisburg has an active
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THE CAPITAL TIMES
THON committee which onianiz.es
meetings, groups, advisors and
events to raise money for the
charity. This year’s goals at Penn
State Harrisburg are to increase
revenue and to make the most
out of their 238 percent increase
in organization tools ( a great
increase in money to work with.)
So far, the club has decided several
canning dates and is designing T
shirts to sell for THON support.
With regular meetings and e-mails,
the members are sure to succeed
in their goals. The club enforces
some mandatory meetings and its
friendly chair people are always
available to contact for questions
and suggestions. With this year’s
wonderful chairs, Ariel O’Malley,
Adam Porter and Craig Dewalt, the
year should be a productive one!
5... ...
Campbell-Hetrick: Beyond the classroom
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Hetrick is excited about her
work as well as becoming a part
of the campus community. During
Photos by AMANDA NACE/Copilol Times
Professor Hetrick, a central Pennsylvania native has come back to PSH teach
mathematics
her first year, she was part of
the newly formed Teacher
Education Council. She is
currently on the Curriculum
Committee for the Math department
and is also
helping out with the math club,
Hetrick has in a sense come back
to her roots. She grew up just a
few miles down Route 230 in
Highspire and after completing her
Bachelor of Science at Villanova,
she went on to complete her graduate
studies and doctoral program at the
highly selective and prestigious
Bryn Mawr College.
“(Bryn Mawr is) an extremely
supportive place to be for a
woman in science or any filed for
that matter. It was a really good
environment for me,” she said.
Hetrick currently lives in
Hershey with her husband Ron.
This past summer, they took a
trip to Hawaii. She said they had
a great time hiking on Oahu. She
wants to travel to Europe and would
fljl***
especially like to visit Spain, Italy
and Germany.
In her spare time, she enjoys
reading and swimming. Her
favorite adult beverage is
Mike’s Hard Lemonade. She
also likes listening to Y-Rock on
WXPN.
“It has the NPR so it is nice and
I get my modem alternative rock,”
she said.
Hetrick admits that her
youthful looks are sometimes
frustrating. She can easily pass for a
student instead of a professor.
“I get asked about my age often,”
she said.
Hetrick said she is very proud of
completing her doctoral program
and is planning on presenting
work to a Joint Mathematics
Meeting in San Diego soon. She
has made previous presentations
to this group of professionals as a
Ph.D. student.
Hetrick credited her parents for
a lot of her success. She said her
parents were really supportive of
her pursuit of higher education.
“(They) pushed me to do my best,”
she said.
Pulitzer winner discusses book
By KELSIE WHITE
Staff Reporter
KNWSO4I@PSU.EDU
Penn State Harrisburg welcomed
the author of this year’s summer
reading choice Sonia Nazario to
campus on Monday October 9th. On
Monday, Nazario gave two separate
presentations at the CUB for students
and faculty to attend to where they
had the opportunity to interact with
her in regard to her Pulitzer Prize
winning novel “Enrique’s Journey.”
Nazario began her presentations
discussing the “biggest crackdown”
immigration
country’s
history and
the “various
responses to
the mounting
frustrations
of the
country.” She
explained
that while
many people
think that
the United
States is
only having
problems
with
immigration
in the states
along the
jpu<_
The students of Penn State Harrisburg attended a presentation by Sonia Nazario, author of "En
rique's Journey", which dealt not only with the book, but with the issues the book covered.
Mexican
border, there
are in fact
“125 to 175 thousand undocumented
immigrants in Pennsylvania alone.”
Nazario said that this is not an issue
we can turn a blind eye to in the
hopes that it will fix itself.
Various students and faculty said
that they appreciated Nazario’s
research prior to her presentation,
because even though she doesn’t
live in Pennsylvania she came
prepared with relevant facts to put
on the table.
Nazario continued with a brief
summary of the events throughout
her novel which depict the journey
of Enrique, a Honduran boy trying
to reach his mother in the U.S.
through the use of freight trains
through South and Central America.
Enrique like many other children
in South and Central America left
home desperately. He had no money
and only a slip of paper with a phone
number on it to find his mother in
Save a life: don't drink and drive
Continued from page 1
offense, you spend 48 hours to
two years in prison and the fine
starts from $3OO to $5,000. With
four or more offenses, you spend up
to one to five years in prison and the
fine starts from $3OO to $lO,OOO.
This year, Penn State Harrisburg’s
“National Collagen Alcohol
Awareness Week” will feature:
Save A Life Tour on Wednesday,
Oct. 10 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in
the Special Events Room of the
Olmsted Building. Get a “real life”
example of your impairment while
driving under the influence of alcohol.
(Open to the general public.)
The drunken driving simulator allows students to get a feel for how even one
drink can affect reaction time and sight.
Mark Sterner: DUI, A Powerful
Lesson on Monday, Oct. 15 from
12 p.m. to 1 p.m. in Olmsted
auditorium. Sterner tells a personal
story of how his life drastically
changed when three of his best
friends and fraternity brothers
were killed in a drinking and
driving accident. Sterner, intoxicated
the U.S. who abandoned him. The
mothers who leave home are usually
single mothers who cannot afford
to send their children to school,
or even feed them every day, and
decide in desperation that they must
abandon their children to go to the
United States where they think jobs
are plentiful and money is easier to
come by.
Children of abandoned mothers
cannot come to understand their
mother’s reasoning in abandoning
them, and have told reporters that
they would rather have had their
mother by their sides living a poor
and hungry life, than receiving
expensive tennis shoes and toys
from her while she worked in the
U.S.
Nazario stressed the fact that
these children who are abandoned
at an early age become troubled
adolescents which leads them to
the desperate decisions they make
in coming to the U.S. or their lives
become chaotic and that’s when we
start to see the gang numbers rising
in South and Central America.
Nazario explained to her audience
that no one understands the “gritty
determination” that these people,
both children and adults, have in
coming to the U.S. She told the story
of another young Honduran boy that
she had met, who had tried to cross
the border into the U.S. 27 times and
was once again being deported back
home. He told her that he would
start his journey again tomorrow
behind the wheel, ended up with three
felony manslaughter convictions,
spending three years in a Florida
prison. He also has a personal video
clip of the event. (Open to campus
community.)
Beer goggles on Tuesday,
Oct. 16 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Location to be announced. See
how alcohol impairs your ability to
function when intoxicated. (Open to
the campus community.)
Student panel discussion on
Tuesday, Oct. 30 from 12 p.m.
to 2 p.m. in the Olmsted Gallery
Lounge. The panel is an open
discussion about alcohol. Students
and alumni will be participating.
(Open to the campus community.)
With drinking under the influence
being illegal and with so much at
risk, take a quick second to think
before you leave a party
or a small get-together.
Even if you had one drink, you
never know if will be your last.
and try for the 28 lh time to cross the
border into the U.S. even though he
had faced death many times.
Nazario admits that she was very
judgmental when her eyes were
first opened to this issue. She said
that she couldn’t understand how a
mother could abandon her children,
but after having traveled on top of
the trains herself, she changed her
mind.
She wrote Enrique’s Journey to
humanize what she, and many
others, see as such a horrible issue.
She hoped that the novel would
make her readers feel like they were
riding on top of the trains with the
immigrants.
When asked if she regretted her trip
Nazario stated no, but with a laugh
said that her husband did, and she
would have even gone a second time
if he would have allowed it.
She also acknowledged that the
immigrants she encountered on her
journey were mostly men, so she
often stood out as being the only
female, but that they were very
gracious because she was there to
tell their true story in detail. She
didn’t just “talk the talk,” she said,
they also saw her “walk the walk”
which gained her a lot of respect.
Nazario has no current plans to write
another novel because she hasn’t
found a topic that “grips” her yet, but
she will continue writing for the Los
Angeles Times until she decides she
might want to start another novel.