Page 4
Feature
November 2008
BY JOSHUA ENRIQUEZ
Staff Writer
Dr. Hawkins, an assistant
professor in biology, is the kind
of person someone would have
to talk to personally to know
her. Just having her in class for
biology is insufficient knowl-
edge of her personality outside
of the classroom.
During her army brat years,
she’s lived-and moved in more
than half of the U.S. and has
never lived anywhere for more
than two years due to the fact
that her father was in the mili-
tary. Moving was a natural
thing in the young life of Haw-
kins and her experiences has led
to this conclusion, “People may
look different and may sound
different, but people are still
people and the same personal
and non-personal issues are
found everywhere.”
Her high school days were
spent in northern Virginia and
for college, she went to Virginia
Tech for an undergraduate de-
gree in biology. She then pro-
ceeded to go to graduate school
for a PhD at the University of
Arizona and that led her to the
career she is in now. On her
spare time, she gardens, bird
watches, reads science fiction
and mysteries, and listens to
music.
People such as herself in-
trigue Hawkins because it al-
lows to, “connect with a couple
of professors who do interesting
research. You know the saying,
‘To pay it forward?’ I hope to
pass some of my experiences
forward to my students if possi-
ble because science is not an
abstract thing. Science is some-
thing you might do for a living
and it’s not something where
you can look up an answer out
of a book. You need to make
sense of what you do,” says
Hawkins.
As students first enter
FTCAP at Penn State Univer-
sity, Hawkins says this, “I enjoy
interacting with students during
the time before college because
it allows me to see what they
think and expect of college.
And sometimes their opinions
change when they’re finally in
college.” Hawkins states, “Yes,
I do enjoy teaching. There’s
nothing that’s more fun than
seeing somebody struggle with
an idea and then get it. It’s like
a light bulb lighting in some-
one’s head. You can see the joy
in people that understand some-
thing for the first time.” It’s
apparent that Hawkins really
enjoys spending time and help-
ing students in her classes. She
proves this even more by men-
tioning, “There have been times
that I have regretted not cloning
myself to get things done be-
cause I wanted to do other
things such as help a student in
one of my classes.”
College itself is really hard
to have due to the expenses one
has to pay to attend and receive
an education and a degree. This
is what Hawkins had to say,
“College is tremendously ex-
pensive. At the same time, loans
are much more available than it
used to be and the terms for
repayment are some of the most
favorable you are ever going to
meet. It’s too bad it has not
nearly as much growth in schol-
arship aid.”
When first seeing Hawkins
go about campus, one wouldn’t
necessarily think that she was in
a terrible accident until she told
you about it. “The single mo-
ment of great joy occurred a
year after I started working at
Penn State. I ended up in a car
accident and had to go to a hos-
pital in York. I had serious brain
damage, broken bones, and was
in a wheelchair for a while. The
joy was the first day the doctor
‘asked me to walk down a hall-
way by myself; and then actu-
ally do it. It was as if it was
riding a bicycle for the first time
you know? Now the worst thing
I experienced was probably
9/11. It was a class day for me
and I was in my biology class
when the planes hit. When ru-
mors started going around, peo-
ple started talking and soon the
TV was turned on. That was a
hard day for a lot of people and
it was horrible and they kept
showing over and over on TV,
but there was a personal con-
nection for me because my dad
worked at the Pentagon. I knew
those places that the planes
were going to hit and I had stu-
dents with families in New
York City. It wasn’t something
that happened to somebody else
but I felt more personal towards
that. I’ll never forget going to
anatomy class that day asking
wanted to have class and main-
tain some normalcy.”
Considering this, Hawkins
has undergone some unique
experiences in her lifetime and
she practically has an opinion
on almost everything especially
politics. “Recently, I’ve been
getting tired of the recent cam-
paigning because of the attacks
on one another. I’m only inter-
ested in knowing what they can
provide and not who or what
they hate. I’ve met some politi-
cians who clearly were good
hearted and clear thinking that
wanted the best for their people
and I believe it. And there are
others who are hungry for
power over people. In Pennsyl-
vania, you need to be registered
with a party in order to vote in
the primaries and because of
that, I’m registered as a Democ-
rat so that I could vote but that
doesn’t necessarily mean
I’m really independent.”
Hawkins has been
with the Mont Alto cam-
pus since 1992 and since
then, she’s seen changes
about the people’s mindset
about certain things.
“When I started on this
campus in 1992, the stu-
dent population and the
faculty and staff popula-
tion was very strongly
white males and females.
It was very uniform but
there were a few excep-
tions. Coming from the
southwestern U.S. where
there is more of a mix of
people and cultures, which are
interesting, seeing some of the
tensions among groups of peo-
ple here was a little dishearten-
ing. Over the last 15 years, the
campus has made an effort to
recruit over a wide area and I
think we’re a much richer place
for those interactions. I’m sure
that there are individuals who
Money
Questions?
Money Made
Simple
Submitted by Joshua Enriquez :
have a difficulty interacting
with other people but I’ve never
seen systematic behavior in an
authority person to hold another
group down.”
If Hawkins were provided a
magic wand, she “would take a
bunch of steps forward with
some of the folks on campus
about going green.”
Money
Answers. J
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