November 14, 2005 The Lion's Eye Adult Students Organization is “Underwhelmed” By GERRY DUNGAN Lion's Eye Staff writer gmd138@psu.edu After more than a decade of existence, the Adult Student Organization (ASO) has been disbanded. Twenty-three clubs declared themselves active at the beginning of this semester. However, the ASO “became one of five campus clubs to be unrecognized by the student government at the most recent Council of Club Presidents meeting. Because of this, the ASO can no longer partici- pate with campus events set up by the Office of Student Life nor ask for club funding from the Allocations Committee, which is chaired by both the heads of Student Life and the Student Government Association (SGA). "If they want representation and to be heard, someone needs to step up," said Stacie Mann, SGA president. On Oct. 9, Gloria Boyd stepped down as the president of the ASO. She declined any comments, but did announce her resignation in an e-mail sent out to the members listed on the Angel Adult Student Network. "This is due not only to my many commitments during my senior year but also because of a lack of involvement from other members of the ASO," she said in the e-mail, "the turnout at meetings was underwhelming." According to past literature of the club, the ASO held welcoming dinners, Sandwich Club lunches, featured guest speakers, regular meetings, gave handbooks and guides detailing academic informa- tion as well as support services offered for the adult students. The member’s list on the Angel Adult Student Network posted over 170 names, and although Boyd said in her e-mail that she would be willing to stay and help with the new leadership, over a month later, no one has taken responsibility of the club. "Well, they may never know, cause they never opened Gloria's e-mails," said Sylvia Schaffer, Assistant Director of Student Programs. Schaffer has also been the advisor for the ASO since its founding in the 1990-1991 academic year. She puts the blame directly on the adult students, saying that the apparent lack of campus wide inter- est in the club has forced the organization to explore different avenues of service for the adult student. "We became a fund-raising engine," she said. At the annual Penn State Delaware County Honor's Convocation, which took place on Oct. 19, Tammy Edgington won the newly funded Adult Student Organization Scholarship. The Adult Student Scholarship and the Richard and Sylvia Schaffer Scholarship were the culmina- tion of years worth of major fundraising by the ASO. The amount came to be a total of $50,000 which was distributed into the scholarship each. "There's no other student organization on this campus that has raised this much for scholarships," Schaffer said. According to Schaffer, the ASO had to evolve from being a simple network of socializing adults to what she called a "fundraising engine." This included such endeavors as selling pretzels outside the 101 classroom of the Main Building to the annual Craft Show, which again took place in the campus' gym this past weekend. However she stated that the majority of the work was shouldered by the campus' staff assistants as well as herself. While aside from the club's officers, only a few adult student volunteers participated in the fundraising events. After providing the social network and scholar- ship benefits, she expressed concern on what direc- tion the club should take. "We don't know what the needs of the adult stu- dents are," stated Schaffer. "Personally, I'm just really here to go to school," said John McCullough, a 27-year-old Journalism major here on campus. Out of his 2 1/2 years on campus, McCullough said that not only was he unaware of the club's exis- tence, but thought that the club and the university's administration didn't communicate well with his fel- low adult students the possible benefits that were being offered to him. "There's nothing specifically against the adult students," said Joanna McGowan, the Registrar of the Delco Campus, "the university only considers them as degree or non-degree students." This was made more evident when it took the Registrar almost an hour to find that about 15% of 1602 current students on the Delco campus are con- sidered adults (officially defined as a student over 24 years of age, according to University policy), while the information on any other minority student was more readily available. It was for this reason that the SGA two years ago, under the administration of Uzair Qadeer, created the position of the Senator of Adult Students. "So long as this campus is committed to educat- ing adult students, it is my belief we should also be committed to advocating for what they need. "One hundred students, or one, each is a student deserving of representation,” said Anya Takos, the first Senator of Adult Students. She said that the relationship between the ASO and the SGA was a success in terms of the work they collaborated on for the adult students, such as setting up the Angel Adult Students Network, and that the students involved with the ASO that year "were par- ticularly cooperative," Takos said. The SGA senate position was carried on by Taryn Chance under the administration of Kevin Krauss. Although Chance reported that her position did even more work for the ASO than the year before, it was dissolved that year. "We changed that position," said current SGA president Stacie Mann, who was the Treasurer under the Krauss administration last year, "at the time, there were a good number of adult students being represented." : As the current SGA president, Mann said she felt that the Senator of Adult Students had "fulfilled its position," and decided to not resurrect the postition, keeping in accordance with her restructuring of the SGA. "Really what I learned in my term (so to speak) was that adult learners seem to simply either want to be part of the usual student crowd, or get their degrees as quick as they can." said Taryn Chance, "It really did seem to me to have that kind of polarity." "I never even heard of it," said 25-year-old adult student, Michael Bruder who is also a reporter for the Lion's Eye. He was referring to the ASO, "Had I heard of it, I don't know what it could do for me." "You don't really have to tell the 24 year-old how to come back to college," said Patrick McWhirter, a 47 year-old Letters Arts And Science senior. "The difference between K-12 [grade levels], is humongous." he said, "It [the ASO] needs to be an organization that hand holds the adult student and points out when they need help." However, both Bruder and McWhirter agree that the special needs of adult students do not apply to school life at all, such as the welfare of their children or keeping their jobs. They say that there is simply no time to socialize with other adult students. "Because we have lives," said McWhirter. "Any group of mature adults has the potential to benefit the campus more than the younger students," Bruder said, "but socializing among themselves, it [the ASO] doesn't do that." Page 3 Eye On Campus Employment Recruiters Visit Campus during Job Fair 2005 A brief walk around PSU-Delco’s annual Job Fair showed just how eager companies are at taking on employ- ees. Most organizations were looking for anyone with inter- est in their company rather than a specific focus. Chip Graham of USI Affinity promptly noted his compa- ny hires “depending on your career path.” Matt Bailry of Endless Pools, an aquatic exercise utility company, said that their hot jobs were all in customer service. Brian G. Millinger, Director of Market and Business Development at Independence Financial Associates said, “The hot jobs this time of year are all in finance or at least I hope they are.” One of the more out of the ordinary organizations in attendance was Longwood Gardens. They offer internships to those who are going to pursue a career in teaching, giv- ing students a chance to teach art and nature courses held on their property. UPS offers tuition reimbursements. r -Dan Delaney
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