Casey Crough
Staff Reporter

Have you been feeling ill lately? Perhaps you have a runny nose, a sore throat, or maybe a fever; it seems like it is routine that students become ill when returning to college campuses, and it’s not from all of the schoolwork.

Since students live and socialize in such a close environment, it’s easy for germs to travel and for others to get sick.

In these first weeks back on the Hill, the Wellness Center has seen about 300 students. Joan Lusby, a certified physicians assistant at the Wellness Center, has not seen anything that has surprised her yet this year.

“Mostly students have come in with a cold, allergy symptoms, or skin infections,” said Lusby. Probably the most serious case are the skin infections. Lusby conducted a two-year study when skin infections began to show up on campus. “Originally skin infections such as MRSA were isolated only in hospitals, but now the infection is spreading into the community,” said Lusby.

After her study, Lusby was the one to get soap into the athletic department, and provided the materials in the gym to wipe off the equipment. The skin infections are in no way an epidemic, but something to still be cautious of.
Red bumps that appear to be a bug bite could be a sign of a skin infection. Oftentimes the bumps may begin to pus or spread.

To decrease your risk of getting an infection, avoid close contact with athletic equipment. Yet, this raises a problem for athletes who practice everyday or students who use the gym on regular basis.
Lusby offers the advice to be highly aware of your personal hygiene and to take action as soon as possible if you think you are getting an infection. She also suggests avoiding skin-to-skin contact.

Another illness around campus is the common cold, yet sometimes it can be mistaken for allergies. Usually with a cold there are aches and pains, coughing, sore throat, and a runny nose. Students can go to the Wellness Center to the Self Care Cold Clinic. This Clinic lets students treat their own symptoms, and can save time since they do not have to make an appointment.

The biggest problem with the student community is the lack of personal responsibility. Lusby claimed, “Students should own their own hand soap and take better care of themselves when regarding personal hygiene.” Although it may seem inconvenient, owning your own hand soap helps to decrease the spreading of germs.

For some students it may be hard to take responsibility of their own, but without that motivation, germs will continue to spread and students will continue to get sick.

It seems as though the school should provide soap for the dorms; if it is college property, it should not have to be the student’s responsibility. Yet, at the same time it is appalling how students treat this campus.

“Kids would never leave their homes as dirty as they do here,” said Lusby. She feels that the school should not have to provide soap; rather it should be the students’ own personal responsibility to maintain their hygiene.

This past February there was a flu epidemic on campus. Several students were sent home in hopes of containing the infection. Each year 36,000 people die from the flu, according to the National Women’s Health Resource Center, and it is no joke.

Lusby said, “kids were upset to be isolated, but I knew if it got out of control, the campus would have been potentially shut down.” The best way to protect yourself is by maintaining your immune system. The Wellness Center will also be offering the flu shot again this year, and it should not be more than twenty dollars. The shot is not a 100 percent guarantee of being flu free, but it is a defense against potentially getting the illness.

No cases of the flu have been reported so far, but the flu only comes once a year, and will probably come again according to Lusby.
When examining other campuses, Lusby said the illnesses tend to be the same on the East Coast: the common cold, the flu, STDS, UTI’s, mono, and skin infections.

Students need to be more contentious when spreading germs. Even little things such as washing their hands frequently or remembering the cover their mouths when they cough could really help the campus to stay healthy.

For more information or advice, call the Wellness Center at ext. 2243.

Kate Maloney
Staff Reporter

We see our professors in Red Square lecturing outdoors on a nice day, advising student-run clubs in the evening, or catching up with colleagues over lunch in GLAR, but mostly we see them in the front of a classroom. It is easy to disregard the fact that professors do more with their PhD than mold our eager undergraduate minds. We forget that they are part of a scholarly network that expands beyond our modest community of 1,700 and reaches a national, if not international audience.

They are respected experts in their fields whose research influences the very subjects we study as their students. Every once in a while, a favorite professor disappears from campus life and students are temporarily reassigned to another faculty member as their stand-in academic advisor. It is only then ? when professors take sabbatical leaves ? that we are reminded of their roles outside the classroom as researchers, authors, and practitioners.

This past spring, Dr. Stephanie Madsen, Associate Professor of Psychology and Chair of the Psychology Department, took a one semester sabbatical leave to work on a textbook titled “Development and Interpersonal Relationships.” She spent the semester gathering over 700 sources for six chapters, completing one chapter on social networks in its entirety, and writing a draft of another on friendships. She is writing the textbook with her former graduate school advisor, Dr. Andrew Collins, whom she has continued to collaborate with since the completion of her doctorate degree.

While the textbook was the main focus and primary undertaking of her semester, she also found time to publish a manuscript in a peer reviewed journal using data she collected with undergraduate research assistants. Her research focuses on adolescents’ romantic relationships and how parents attempt to influence and manage such relationships. This article in Journal of Youth and Adolescence was followed with a flurry of media interest, attracting the attention of a Wall Street Journal columnist, Sue Shellenbarger. In the wake of the article’s appearance, she accepted several interview opportunities to discuss her thoughts on parents and adolescent romance airing on National Public Radio, Boston Public Radio, and New York Public Radio, to name a few.

Madsen also served her field as a reviewer for prominent academic journals on adolescent development, presented two posters and as a presenter at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence in Chicago. She also spent time revising courses she teaches here at McDaniel, and caught up on her professional reading ? all activities that might be labeled “important, but not urgent”.

Because sabbatical projects are such concentrated, focused efforts, Madsen was grateful to be free of daily interruptions such as faculty meetings but also noted that scholarly work comes with its own set of challenges. For one, hours of reading and writing is undoubtedly isolating work so she made a point to meet friends for lunch to avoid cabin fever. It can also be tempting to avoid scholarly endeavors when you do not have a set schedule or demanding deadlines. She spent the first couple of weeks cleaning out every closet in the house and organizing her photographs, but set up a home office downstairs which helped to create a separate, consistent workspace that she retreated to each morning.

Ironically, the word sabbatical has its roots in the Greek word for Sabbath meaning a time for rest from work when in fact, a sabbatical may very well be the time when professors get the greatest amount of work done. However, Madsen concedes that working on sabbatical is more flexible and easy-going compared to being on campus. Even her doctor noticed she was less stressed when her blood pressure was appreciably lower.

Colleen McCarrick
Staff Reporter

Canine Companions for Independence (CCI) is a national non-profit organization that provides highly trained assistance dogs to people with disabilities.

Their motto is “Some people wait a lifetime for a miracle; we raise them one at a time.” With the unique combination of hard work, dedicated students, sacrifice, commitment and love, McDaniel College is raising their very own miracle: Kaya.

Kaya seems like a typical puppy who loves to chew toys and toes, to meet new people and playmates, and to take long naps. But the green tattoo behind Kaya’s ear sets her apart from most puppies. It shows that in just a few short years, her life will be far from normal. Kaya has just embarked on a remarkable journey through CCI that will result in making miracles happen.

This nine week old White Labrador mix is considered a “puppy-in-training” for the Canine Companions for Independence Club. Through the CCI, Kaya will be trained to perform special services for an individual whose life will be changed in wonderful and miraculous ways.

Sophomore Abigail Vickers is the founder of McDaniel College’s chapter of Canine Companions for Independence. She and the residents of 127 PA Avenue are the caretakers and trainers of Kaya. Vickers, who plans to major in biology and pre-vet, has been involved with CCI for several years.

Vickers’ Girl Scout Gold Award project was training a puppy named Pinello. Pinello is now making miracles happen in Pennsylvania for a thirty year old man, Eric, who has a degenerative nerve disease. After raising Pinello, Vickers realized that she wanted to do it again. She subsequently adopted a puppy named Caroline, whom she recently handed over for advanced training.

Last fall, when Vickers started as a freshman at McDaniel, life without a dog was a big adjustment: “I’ve grown up with dogs all my life. It felt really empty.” Vickers took it upon herself to bring a little piece of home with her to McDaniel by starting start CCI on campus.

This year, McDaniel College’s Canine Companions for Independence club was able to receive permission to raise an assistance dog on campus. Vickers said that she had to jump through “a lot of loopholes” to get permission to bring a dog to campus. “Most people don’t understand the difference between a dog and an assistance dog,” she explained. In the beginning of September, Vickers picked up Kaya and brought her to her new home: McDaniel College.

Eight members of the Canine Companions for Independence Club reside together in McDaniel Affinity Housing. All of the residents share the responsibility of taking care of Kaya. She needs to be let out in the early morning, fed breakfast at 7am, played with at various times during the day, occasionally taken to the veterinarian, and brought to Puppy Training classes once a month. Despite the extra work, McDaniel senior and CCI member Sarah McGraw admits that having Kaya “brings home to campus. She brings everyone together and gives everyone responsibility.”

Kaya will be in this stage of “puppy raising” for the next year and a half. Kaya’s innocent bites, adorable barks and playful jumps are irresistibly cute. But for the residents at 127 PA Avenue, even little misbehaviors cannot be tolerated. Posted on the wall of the campus house is a list of the commands that the trainers are expected to teach Kaya. Her training program requires that she learn and master basic commands such as her name, hurry, sit, let’s go, kennel, wait, and shake by the age of six months. Vickers said that it is also important to socialize Kaya with different people and in a variety of situations so that “she learns what she can and cannot do.”

When Kaya is between the age of fifteen and eighteen months, she will be returned to the regional CCI center for six months of advanced training. The green tattoo, which will eventually fade, will serve to identify her among the other dogs in training.

Canine Companions for Independence trains four types of assistance dogs: Service dogs, who are partnered with adults with physical disabilities to assist with daily tasks, Facility dogs who are trained to assist in physical therapy, Skilled Companion dogs, who are work with either a disabled child or adult under the guidance of a facilitator, and Hearing dogs, who alert partners to key sounds by making physical contact. Vickers does not let know what type of assistance dog Kaya will be.

Even though Kaya is now just an adorable little puppy who falls asleep on your lap, snores and has “puppy dreams”, she will one day make dreams come true as an assistance dog. Her training and experience at 127 PA Avenue is preparing her to help a disabled person lead a confident and fulfilled life. Someday, her unqualified love and uncompromising loyalty will be the miracle in someone’s life.

McDaniel’s Canine Companions for Independence Club meets every other Thursday at 7 pm at 127 PA Avenue. The club is looking for donations to help cover the costs of raising and training Kaya. Donated money will go towards puppy food, toys, treats, vet bills (which cost approximately $670/year), medications (eye drops, ear drops, shampoo), household cleanup supplies for accidents, and gas money for traveling to and from obedience classes. Any contribution is greatly appreciated. Money can be donated in cash or check made out to Canine Companions for Independence. Please contact Abigail Vickers at adv001@mcdaniel.edu for more information.

Andrew Velnoskey
Staff Reporter

Walk into the pub during the day and you can always count on seeing Kathy Reiker. Known by everyone as Miss Kathy, she is always there to give you a smile and take your order.

Unfortunately, for six weeks this summer, that was not the case. Miss Kathy was diagnosed with breast cancer in May, underwent surgery in July, and spent two days in the hospital. Though the experience was very trying, Miss Kathy said the enormous support from the campus community made things much better. Miss Kathy said she received over 300 cards.

Robin Brenton, and the Alumni Relations department, were particularly supportive. When asked to comment on Miss Kathy, Robin said, “Whether it’s a quick interaction in the pub, or a longer time working together at an event, Kathy’s enthusiasm and love for life is contagious. Kathy is the kind of person that always goes above and beyond for everyone around her and when we were made aware of her illness, there was no thought other than to do the exact same for her.”

Miss Kathy has now been back at work for a few weeks and has resumed her normal shift in the pub. You can also find her helping out with other events around campus with Sodexo’s catering department. Though her experience has by no means been easy, she says she is now feeling 100% healthy and is very glad to be back, as all of us are glad to see her back. Sodexo General Manager Deb Shaffer summed up the feelings of the entire campus when she said, “The pub was just not the same without Miss Kathy.”

During her absence Miss Kathy requested that people donate money to Cancer Research instead of sending her flowers, etc. You can do your part in the pub, by buying a breast cancer bracelet for a donation towards cancer research.

Sam Segal
Staff Reporter

“Photography is my eye of the world. I capture what I see to share it with others”
Colin Miller, a sophomore here at McDaniel College, is a photographer and the recent winner of the 2008 Microsoft Future Pro Photographer Competition with his photograph of the Dust Bowl. “I took it my freshman year of high school after saving up for my camera,” he says. “It was the picture that got me into photography. It was the first picture that showed me what I could do.”

Miller, however, didn’t become really into photography until his sophomore year of high school when he started really exploring his surroundings. It started as a way to pass the time?he would go with friends over the weekend into the city. “We’d roam around DC and [find things] to photograph”. But after a while, it became a habit.

“We [started going to] sporting events, concerts, protests, marches?basically anywhere the Metro would take us.” The city was my playground and my camera was my one and only toy.

Besides documenting urban life, Miller also went to Nicaragua to help distribute food and set up a water filtration system. “I got to document the trip for the organization.” He’s done portraits, photographed weddings, even a truckers convention in California.

“I hope that some of my pictures make a change, big or small, to someone somewhere. If I can do that, that’s what matters.”