Spring 2023 / Around the Green

With curricular changes, increased collaborations between disciplines, new faculty hires, equipment updates, and renewed energy, the arts at Wilson are transforming.
By Darrach Dolan

Music, dance, painting, singing, writing, and performance have been a critical part of a Wilson education since her founding. In keeping with the College’s strategic plan to deliver relevant and rigorous courses, the arts at Wilson are undergoing a philosophical and pedagogical review. Our outstanding faculty are reimagining the courses they teach, the creative pursuits they direct, and the relationship between the various arts on campus. They aim to deliver a wide choice of creative options to students in the most meaningful, inclusive, and accessible ways.

In practice, disciplines such as dance, singing, and music, which may not have gotten the attention or funding they deserved over recent years, will be given new leases on life. And other disciplines, such as creative writing and the visual arts, will be more aligned with contemporary and industry standards. And all the arts at Wilson will be brought under one philosophical umbrella to encourage collaboration and cross-pollination among student and faculty artists.

The transformation has begun. Already we have opened a new graphic art laboratory, have started recruiting students for a show choir, are redesigning the dance studio, and are making many more behind-the-scenes changes.

The entire arts courses, offerings, and programs will be rebranded this spring as The Arts at Wilson. “This is a natural progression of what we have been working on for five years or so,” Philip Lindsey, Professor of Studio Practice, says, “coupled with exciting ideas and opportunities that come with new faculty who’ve joined the arts programming at Wilson in the last two years.”

And this reimagining of the arts has been made more timely by the soul-searching during the pandemic. Across the planet, people reevaluated their relationships with work and community. Many found or rediscovered the value of the arts and their ability to take you out of yourself and make fundamental human connections across time, space, and cultures.

“The school has begun to move beyond the pandemic and embrace the College’s strategic plan,” said Joshua Legg, the MFA director and a professor of interdisciplinary practice. “We’ve tried to make the most of what that strategic renewal can do for the arts on campus and how we can contribute to the goals of that plan. For instance, we’ve finally been able to use generous donations from alumnae who wanted to help revive a music program at Wilson. Last spring, President Fugate charged arts faculty and our Division Chair, Michael Cornelius, with finding a way to put those funds to use, which ultimately led to hiring Wilson’s first full-time music faculty member since the 1980s.”

“In fact,” Legg continued, “we are hoping that alumnae who were on campus in the ‘80s might find some similarities between the interdisciplinary arts degree that existed then and what we are building now. We even have an interdisciplinary arts concentration in the Master of Fine Arts program, and we are considering what a revived degree of that sort might look like at the undergraduate level.”

Encouraging collaboration and cross-pollination between the arts faculty and programs is an essential aim of bringing the arts under a single umbrella at the College. “The students in our MFA draw from multiple disciplines for their art and are dedicated to collaboration, both with each other and with artists outside of the program,” said Matthew McBride, poet and professor of English. “Interdisciplinary and collaborative artmaking is a large part of our MFA’s ethos, and one of the goals of reimagining the Arts at Wilson is to imbue the College’s undergraduate curriculum with that same energy.”

The faculty have made changes across the arts curricula this year that better align undergraduate and graduate programming and pave the way for more contemporary and relevant experiences for Wilson’s students at both levels. “Those experiences,” Lindsey said, “not only keep our curricula in the individual disciplines closely connected to the cutting edge in our respective fields but also foster a better sense of how artists across those fields are embracing collaborative practices.”

Dance and Performance
While many of these developments come from the faculty’s efforts to keep our programs current, some stem from the sheer need in a post-pandemic world. “It was clear that the struggles of the last several years had taken a toll on dance at Wilson,” said Jen Graham, a choreographer and dance professor, who is rebuilding the dance and movement minor. “On the positive side,” she said, “this created an opportune time, as I stepped into this position, to immediately engage with the other arts faculty in reimagining how we can build on the strong values, traditions, and history of dance and the arts at the school to support and prepare our students in a post-pandemic landscape.”

“It can be tough for a new faculty member to have to engage in significant curricular revisions their first semester on a campus,” Legg said, “but Professor Graham took time to get a deep sense of the culture of Wilson, explored the rich and vibrant history of dance here so that she gained an understanding of the students’ needs, and connected with this community before making decisions about changes to the curriculum.”

“As my colleagues have noted,” Graham said, “this next evolution of dance at Wilson takes cues from the unique non-hierarchical interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of our MFA program. It also happens to be the way that we tend to work together as artist-scholars, as well as tying in with the College’s mission and vision. Perhaps more importantly, this was inspired by our long history of helping our students find and develop their individual creative voices through dance and movement.”

Faculty are also planning changes to the Appenzellar-Buchanan Dance Studio. “We have a beautiful dance studio that has long been used as a performance space as well,” Legg noted. However, the space could use general updates. “It’s time for a new sound system and media equipment. Wilson’s IT team is doing great work helping us acquire those things,” he said. “Attending to those overdue updates has also allowed Professor Graham and me to think about how we can better utilize the space not just for classes but for performances, too. Our plan, over time, is to rework how we use the space for performances and to enhance it as a black box theatre space that can support not only student dance performances but also small professional dance groups. And, now that we have theatre back in the curriculum via the MFA, we’re thinking about how experimental theatre could be presented in the studio/black box setting, too.”

Part of that process will involve exploring the possibility of adding an LED lighting system in the studio space to enhance performances. “We’ll also flip the locations where the audience sits and the artists perform to make better use of the possible entrances and exits,” Legg said. Graham and Legg indicated that it would take time to build the budget for a lighting system but that this is the appropriate time to begin that planning and that they will be working to link that process to the College’s strategic plan over the next three years.

Music and Choir
Dillon Beede, our new director of choral activities and chair of music, had a similar experience to Graham’s during his first semester on faculty. “This is a very unique and exciting opportunity for music at Wilson College,” he remarked, “as it’s so rare to be able to step into a space in academia to envision and build a program from scratch. I’m grateful to be joining a campus community that supports the arts and a new program like music in both word and deed.” As part of the re-envisioning of musical opportunities, Beede will launch the Wilson College Show Choir in Fall 2023. Additionally, Beede made his Wilson debut conducting the College’s long-standing concert choir as part of the Christmas Vespers service. Beede has also moved a set of curricular revisions forward this year that will support the student music experience on campus beginning in Spring 2024.

Visual Art
In addition to new and revised performing ensembles, Wilson has opened a digital design lab this semester. “We are excited to have a dedicated graphic design and digital artmaking lab on the campus,” said Adam DelMarcelle, artist and graphic design professor. “The lab, which features industry-standard design and digital artmaking tools, was realized thanks to the collaborative effort of faculty and our IT department. This state-of-the-art workspace allows students to learn in an environment that mirrors the professional design studios they will experience once graduating from Wilson and entering the field of graphic design, illustration, and visual art.”

The lab will also benefit studio art students looking to add digital artmaking to their skill sets. The studio is equipped with Macintosh computers, large-format scanners, a large-format printer, and a 3D printer. This new dedicated workspace will allow students to expand their skills and gain experience with emerging technologies. Graduate students will also benefit from this industry-standard equipment during the MFA program’s summer intensives. Legg observed, “I’ve interviewed prospective graduate students who ended up not applying for our MFA because we didn’t have a 3D printer or couldn’t provide industry-standard Macs for them to work on here on campus. Our old PC lab just couldn’t handle the kind of film or multimedia work that choreographers are making these days. You need Macs to power that work.”

A Rich Arts Legacy
The arts faculty are quick to acknowledge that they aren’t throwing out what came before. Quite the opposite. They are enthusiastic about contributions from past students and other arts faculty. Lindsey noted, “Paula Kellinger, Professor Emerita of Dance, built a foundation for our current programming, focusing on what she referred to as ‘a deep commitment to the intellectual, emotional, and cultural growth of students and Wilson College … where learning is an intimate collaboration and exchange of ideas.’”

“And Bob Dickson, Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts,” Lindsey continued, “saw a Wilson education as an obligation to ‘look at art objects from around the world to expand our horizons and to begin to understand the place of art in culture and the way that cultures influence one another.’”

For Kellinger and Dickson, doing art was not the same as making art, and participation was not an option. Wilson’s current arts faculty share that belief and that art is non-hierarchal. They see it as interdisciplinary and engaging, and they are developing a community tied to Wilson’s mission that, among other goals, emphasizes creating visionary leaders and agents of justice. And for these faculty members, that is done, in part, through artistic practice and products or productions.

Graham elaborated, “While the dance coursework has found new form, I feel that it is deeply connected to and builds from the work and vision of Paula Kellinger in her development of the dance program and regains focus on Wilson’s beloved Orchesis as a student-led extension of that program, revitalizing the scope and breadth of opportunities for our students and magnifying the prominence and power of their voices.”

The Arts at Wilson
The faculty is committed to engaging and encouraging pedagogical, artmaking, performance, and presentational practices that intentionally confront and interrogate systems of power and their effect on the individual and society. They guide students in developing tools and processes for artistic inquiry and creation, paralleling those of scientific inquiry and discovery, and view those as one and the same.

Graham observed, “We aim to awaken students to the experiences and perspectives of not just themselves as an individual, but as an individual who is a part of an interconnected and interdependent whole. We support students in cultivating tools for critical observation, offering discerning feedback, and engaging in productive, growth-oriented exchange and discussion.”

All of this is leading to a rebranding of Wilson’s arts programs in early 2023. “For a long while,” Lindsey said, “our area has been Fine Arts and Dance. But that doesn’t fully describe what we do any longer. Enhancing graphic design, incorporating creative writing into the MFA, reintroducing both music and theatre into the curricula, and adding new faculty made us realize we needed to identify our area more broadly, but also more succinctly.”

Therefore, starting in the spring, the array of creative options will simply become The Arts at Wilson, and a new graphic for this grouping will be unveiled in April during Arts Fest.

“The really exciting part of all of the revisions to the curricula and to the arts spaces, of course,” Lindsey pointed out, “is what these things will mean to our students. They will be working with a highly engaging and contemporary curriculum and with tools and in spaces that are in better keeping with our fields. That should enhance our ability to recruit and retain undergraduate and graduate students alike.”

Meet the Wilson Arts Faculty
Left to right:
Adam DelMarcelle – Assistant Professor of Graphic Design
Joshua Legg – Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and MFA Program Director
Jen Graham – Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance and Assistant MFA Program Director
Dillon Beede – Director of Choral Activities and Chair of Music
Matthew McBride – Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Practice
Philip Lindsey – Professor of Studio Practice
Michael Cornelius — Professor of English, Master of Humanities Program Director, and Master of Organizational Leadership Program Director (not pictured)

Spring 2023 Arts Calendar

January 23, Mac Design Lab opens
February 1 to March 3, Bogigian Gallery – Hagerstown Community College Student Exhibition
March 4, Wilson College Creative Writing Colloquium (a free writing conference featuring readings and workshops by nationally and internationally recognized authors)
March 29 to April 21, Bogigian Gallery – Annual Juried Student Art Exhibition
Continuing Through March 31st: Cooley Gallery – Improvised: The Art of Practiced Freedom, featuring works by arts faculty from Hagerstown Community College and Wilson College
April 13 to 15, Wilson Arts Fest (specific dates and times are TBA)
Open Studio & Art Give-Away by Philip Lindsey
Cooley Gallery Exhibit by Joshua Legg
MFA alumna Katie Pustizzi in residence with student workshop & performance/screening of her most recent dance film Liquid Spine including a talkback after the screening
A Shadow that Broke the Light by Charlie & Adam DelMarcelle, a 24-hour immersive theatre experience
Dillon Beede, Voice Recital with Guest Dance Artist Jen Graham
April 28 to May 15, Bogigian Gallery – Senior Capstone Exhibition
May 7, Wilson Choir Concert

Current Artistic Practices

Available to undergraduate students:
• degrees: creative writing and visual art (including graphic design and various 2D and 3D studio art practices)
• minor: dance/movement
• credit courses: music

Available to students in the MFA Program:
• choreography
• creative writing
• directing for theatre
• directing and choreography for musical theatre
• interdisciplinary arts
• visual art

Use garlic scapes and cloves to make delicious recipes.
By Jennifer Cisney

Garlic tends to provoke strong opinions. Some crave the unique taste it adds to recipes, while others dread the pungent side effects. Whether you love garlic or avoid it, these innocent-looking papery bulbs pack powerful flavor and tremendous health benefits.

The Fulton Farm at Wilson has been growing garlic since its inception. Each October, students and volunteers from the community help plant hundreds of garlic cloves. The farm grows a hardneck variety more suitable to our growing area. Over winter, the rows are heavily mulched with straw. From May to June, the flowering parts of the plant, known as scapes, are removed to initiate garlic head formation. Scapes can be used like fresh garlic, and Wilson’s dining hall likes to pickle them. By July, the garlic is ready to be harvested. The garlic is sorted, bundled, and hung to cure in the barn. (Garlic can be stored for months in a cool, dry spot.) About 20% of the garlic is saved for replanting in the fall, while the rest is sold or kept for campus use.

Today, China produces 75% of the world’s garlic supply. If you prefer to buy domestic garlic, you can tell the difference, as Chinese garlic has the roots chopped off to cut down on shipping costs and contaminated soil. Domestic garlic typically has its roots intact. Of course, if you buy your garlic from Fulton Farm, you know you are getting authentic, naturally grown garlic with the freshest, fullest flavor.

Garlic Facts

There are 450 types of garlic.

Garlic is actually a flower — part of the lily family.

Garlic is native to Asia and was used by ancient Egyptians for cooking and medicine.

Garlic can be used as a pesticide, and you can make glue from garlic.

California grows 90% of the garlic in the US.

The average yearly consumption of garlic per person is two pounds.

Garlic can be used as a dietary supplement for heart conditions, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure.

Garlic has shown potential in reducing cold symptoms and even preventing colds and flu.

It is thought that because of the history of garlic’s use in medicine, including as a mosquito repellent, Bram Stoker chose garlic as a vampire repellent in his 1897 book “Dracula”.

Pickled Garlic Scapes
INGREDIENTS
About 25 garlic scapes/about a half pound
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp salt
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
1/2 tsp dill seeds
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
Sterilize two pint jars.

Trim any dead ends off the scapes. Curl them into the jars and add the peppercorns, dill seeds, and mustard seeds.
Mix vinegar, water, sugar, and salt in a pot and bring to a boil while stirring until the sugar and salt are dissolved.
Pour the hot brine into the jars over the scapes while leaving a half inch of space at the top of the jar.
Let the jars cool, then add the lids and place in the fridge for about four weeks before eating.

Garlic Scape Pesto
INGREDIENTS
About a dozen garlic scapes
1 cup pine nuts
1 cup parmesan cheese
1 tbsp lemon juice
Pinch of salt
Pinch of pepper
1 cup olive oil

Trim any dead ends off the scapes, then add them to a food processor. Add the pine nuts, cheese, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.
Pulse until blended, then with the food processor running, slowly add the olive oil until all is blended.
Store in a jar in the fridge or freeze.

Easy Roasted Garlic
INGREDIENTS
3 garlic heads
1 tbsp olive oil
Pinch of salt

Heat oven to 400 degrees.
Peel off the outer paper skin of the garlic. Cut the top quarter inch off each head of garlic.
Place each head of garlic on a sheet of aluminum foil. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Fold foil up over each head of garlic into a little packet.
Bake in the oven for 45 minutes.

Monique Paré Spiers ’11 grew up in Cambridge, Mass., where she was an avid gymnast and a lover of science. When it came time to apply to college, she wanted to live far enough from home to feel independent yet close enough to get home for breaks, wanted a school with a strong science program, and ideally, wanted to be on a collegiate gymnastics team — she’d been a gymnast since childhood.

She applied to numerous schools but was frustrated because she felt like a number to all of them. Then her mother came across Wilson. It had a gymnastics team, was far enough away from home, and had a good academic reputation. Although she hadn’t considered a women’s college, Paré Spiers thought that might be fun.

She filled out the application materials and didn’t think much else about it. “Within a week, they called me and said they were so happy I’d applied and said, ‘You’re accepted, and we have a scholarship for you,’” Paré Spiers said. “I just felt so loved and welcomed right away that it was almost a no-brainer.” And that was before she had spoken with the gymnastics coach, who said she’d be welcome on the team.

“I loved Wilson,” she said. “It was hard because I was very studious and didn’t sleep very much because I would stay up all night doing homework. But I really loved it. I’m really grateful for Wilson.”

Broadening Horizons

Her father, a veterinarian, had passed away a couple of years before she graduated from high school. Paré Spiers wanted to honor him by becoming a vet too. However, after a few pre-vet meetings, she realized that her peers were much more into animals than she was. She considered a biology major but was nervous. “One of the requirements was calculus. I was so scared because math was always a struggle for me. I was like, I don’t think I can do that.”

She took Biology 101, nonetheless. At the end of the semester, her professor took her aside and told her she had one of the high- est grades in the class. “I left that meeting, changed my major [to biology], and said I can do this. When I got to calculus a year or two later, I loved calculus!”

She found “a close group of friends that were really determined and really smart people, and we would study together and have fun.” This group consisted of a couple of her gymnastics teammates and international students from Korea, Lebanon, and Ethiopia. “I go to a small town in Pennsylvania and meet all these people from around the globe. Learning from those women opened my mind to really important things about culture and the world.”

“I’m glad I went to a liberal arts college,” she said. “I think it’s important to learn other disciplines.” She took Spanish and became the president of the Spanish Club. More importantly, fluency in Spanish would lead to her mission on behalf of her church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to Spanish-speaking communities in Colorado. While on this mission, she discovered she was a “western girl” and wanted to live in that part of the country. Today, she and her husband, Kyle Spiers, live in Utah, and their two daughters are enrolled in a school that teaches through Spanish. They are expecting their first son in June.

Mouse Models and Graduate School

In terms of her career, her Wilson education paved the way. As part of her senior research project, she examined the effects of different diets on mouse models of the autoimmune disease psoriasis. The project was close to her heart as she had had psoriasis since age 10. The project was a success, but she ended up with more questions than answers and realized she wanted to know more about the pathways that underlie the skin condition. That meant research at the graduate level.

When she applied to enter a biochemistry doctoral program at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, she discovered that she had fulfilled all the prerequisites while at Wilson. To her surprise, one of the professors who ran a particularly difficult and analytical lab requested her for his team.

Once again, she questioned her ability to master the high-level math and analysis the lab used. She shouldn’t have worried. While the work was difficult and the professor ran the lab like a drill sergeant, the expertise and competence in analysis that she gained there led directly to her “dream job.”

When she was close to completing her doctorate and pregnant with her first child, she was approached by a commercial laboratory that needed someone to develop methods to analyze the ingredients in their skincare products. Several years and two daughters later, she now works for the parent company of that lab, Rhyz Analytical Labs, and continues to develop analytical methods for a variety of products.

Women in the Sciences

Until the final year of her doctorate, she had been the only woman in her lab. “Luckily, Wilson had helped me to be happy as a woman in the sciences.” She wants all women to feel the same confidence and works with youth and community groups to encourage girls and young women to enter the sciences.

At a recent International Association of Analytical Chemists conference, she suggested ways to support women and parents in the industry, including having childcare available at meetings. Her suggestions are currently under consideration. “It is extremely important to have women in science, and I am a huge promoter of this.”

As for Wilson students interested in entering the sciences, she has some suggestions.
1. “Get as much time in the lab as you can. I wish I had interned at a lab. It would have been easier starting grad school if I’d had more lab experience before going into it.”
2. “Do research and familiarize yourself with that.”
3. “Network. At Wilson, I went to the Pennsylvania Academy of Sciences conference and presented there. I highly recommend you go to conferences, get involved, and talk to as many people in the field as you can.”

The team spring cleans the Equestrian Center.
By Logan Smith, Director of Athletics Communications

It’s common across collegiate sports for different teams to support each other. They typically show up at home games or events to cheer on fellow student-athletes.

But what if one team wanted to support another during the off-season and there were no competitions to cheer? How could this team support the other? The men’s soccer team found the answer in December when it took a day to go to the Penn Hall Equestrian Center.

It’s no secret that the equestrian program has an important presence on campus. However, it might be news to some how much work goes into the upkeep of the facilities to keep them presentable.

Men’s soccer head coach Chris Higgins contacted McKenna Debus, the coordinator of the equestrian center and hunt seat head coach, and asked if volunteering at the barn would be something the team could do. She thought it was a great idea, but she also thought he was talking about something they would do at some unspecified date in the future.

Imagine her surprise when the entire men’s soccer team showed up at the barns a few days later.

As a group, they filled up water buckets, shoveled sawdust, moved equipment, and cleaned up dirt in the event arenas. For some, it was a brand new experience in an environment they had never been in before. “While it was a lot of hard work, the guys really enjoyed themselves knowing they were helping our equestrian program,” said Higgins. “They really liked being able to interact with the horses after they were done, and for some, it was their first chance to feed and pet a horse.”

According to Deebus, having the team out was a huge help. “They could accomplish in an hour what it would have taken us a few days to accomplish during the semester,” she said. “It is more difficult to dedicate a large chunk of time to large projects during the semester due to classes and how much the arena is used, but the [men’s soccer] team was able to cut that time down.”

After providing instructions, Deebus said the team looked as though they thought they might be there all day, but they had a great attitude, immediately went to work, and powered through it. They were happy when she explained just how much time they had saved the equestrian teams.

Once they were done, Deebus pulled out the treats so they could feed some of the horses. “I was confused at first by how quickly they were going through treats. Then I realized that instead of giving one treat at a time, they were giving handfuls at once. Our horses didn’t seem to mind, though.” She went on to say that the men’s soccer team is welcome back anytime. The horses would probably agree.

Scarlet ponders the goings-on with her groundhog friend.
By the College’s Favorite Feline

Life here at Wilson College has been simply delightful. Just the other day, when I was sharing a saucer of tea with my dear friend Agatha, the groundhog, it struck me that I have been a proud Wilson resident for three years now!

My my, how the time has purred by. I believe I am finally beginning to get my paws around your strange Pennsylvania and Wilson traditions, although I must admit, I still have not quite figured out whether I am an even or an odd. Perhaps time will tell. Still, I have been reflecting on how so much has changed here at Wilson, even in these three short years.

For instance, you may recall from my recent tour of your lovely campus that I befriended your beautiful Wilson College horses. I already found it absurd that animals carry people, as I prefer to have my dads carry me. But would you believe that animals carrying people while going through their calisthenics is a sport? The utter insanity! On a positive note, I’m told that our team of Wilson College horses is quite accomplished, even defeating a team of horses from a certain Penn State. Now, I do not believe I have visited this “state of Penn,” but clearly, our Wilson horses are of a much finer quality.

On a subject closer to my whiskers, why you humans insist on so many dining options, I will never understand. But Agatha tells me that a new café has opened on the bottom floor of the student center, and it is big news amongst the Wilson community! Agatha’s great-grandhog Eleanor told us this café is where the famous “Snackie” was. With even more food and drink options to add to the Dining Hall options, the café is already beloved by the students. Why they cannot eat the same thing every day as I do, I simply cannot fathom.

Agatha tells me that in another human-initiated attempt to add options at Wilson, the College has launched something called Wilson Online. Now, I find this one particularly puzzling. After all, soon after I arrived here in 2020, you shifted most of your work online, only to resume in-person interactions a year later. And now I’m told you’re expanding your online programs again! You humans are such fickle creatures and simply cannot make up your minds. Still, I have heard that this will add new members to the Wilson community, and I can absolutely get on board anything that will grow our Wilson family.

These are just a few exciting new developments here. Perhaps you have recently returned and have seen some of these lovely changes for yourself. Or maybe you plan to return this summer for your reunion. Whatever the case, please do drop me a line when you are next on campus. I will try to carve some time out of my busy schedule of sleeping and napping to welcome you home.

Until next time.

The Phoenix have a successful fall season.
by Logan Smith, Director of Athletic Communications

The accolades keep racking up for the FIELD HOCKEY team after it finished another banner year this past November. The Phoenix opened the season with a pair of shutouts to extend their regular season win streak to 22 games, and while they dropped a few games after that, the Blue and Black regrouped to win seven consecutive contests to close out the 2022 regular season.

The Phoenix weren’t finished. They extended their overall win streak to nine games with wins over Sweet Briar and Keystone in the postseason. The result was Wilson’s third consecutive CSAC championship. Back-to-back-to-back titles.

Head coach Shelly Novak had quite the supporting cast to help the team along the way, as seven student-athletes went on to earn All-CSAC honors. Those included Alexis Pflumm (Senior), Allyson Shindler (Senior), Hailey Steele (Sophomore), Brea Kelso (Sophomore), Paige Ney (First-Year), Alexis Alleman (Senior), and Elizabeth Landon (First Year).

Pflumm repeated her spot as a first-team selection while being chosen to the postseason for the third time in her career, but what was more impressive was that she was selected as the CSAC’s Co-Player of the Year. Sharing the honors with Cedar Crest’s Kiley Marone, Pflumm led the conference with 81 shots, was second with 49 shots on goal, fifth with 12 goals, sixth with six assists, and fourth with 30 points.

A defense led by Shindler in goal and Steele on the back line joined Pflumm as first-team selections. Together they helped the Phoenix defense record nine shutouts during 2022, four of which closed the regular season with two more that followed in the CSAC tournament.

While the Phoenix bowed out in the NCAA Division III Championships to the College of New Jersey, they showed that they are still the top team in the CSAC and became just the third school to win three straight league titles (Misericordia 1994-96, Gwynedd-Mercy 2011-14).

The WOMEN’S SOCCER team had another incredible season and improved upon prior successes. After having the best season in program history in 2021, the Phoenix expanded upon that with a 12-5-2 record in 2022. Once again, they hosted a CSAC Tournament game and defeated Keystone 3-0 at home in the quarterfinals. A grand total of eight student-athletes earned postseason honors as Jade Wolfe (Sophomore), Chloe Antalek (Senior), Mia Harris (Senior), Rebecca Marakovitz (Sophomore), Halley Shaffer (First-Year), Bianca Sommers (First-Year), Bailey Miller (Senior) and Rachel Coulter (Sophomore) were all named to the All-CSAC Team. Wolfe was named the Co-CSAC Defensive Player of the Year after being the Rookie of the Year in 2021.

WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL faced adversity with a small roster during the season but finished the year on the upswing with three wins in their final six matches of regular season play. It resulted in a 4-5 CSAC record and clinched the final spot in the conference tournament. Deah Menedis (Sophomore) led a roster with just one upper-class student to receive All-CSAC First Team honors.

MEN’S SOCCER also faced a difficult season but finished strong down the stretch. The Phoenix made a commendable push for the postseason by winning two of their final three
games but just missed out on the playoffs because of tiebreaking rules in the conference standings. First-year student-athletes Aidan Diem and Martin Souza were honored by being named All-CSAC selections as an honorable mention and a sportsmanship team pick, respectively.

Sarah’s Cupboard addresses food security issues on campus
by Rev. Derek Wadlington and Rebecca Galvin ’23

Sarah’s Cupboard is the College’s “pantry” —a place where any member of the Wilson community with a valid ID can pick up food and other necessities for free. It was created with grant money and donations from the Alumni Association of Wilson College (AAWC) and is overseen by the Office of the Chaplain.

The Cupboard opened its door at the start of the fall 2016 semester to address food security issues on campus and provide aid to those who need it in a friendly, personal, and yet stigma-free way. Over its six years, the Cupboard has been visited almost 1,000 times. Usage grew steadily until the hit of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020. The pandemic and the absence of students on campus forced us to reach out in different ways, including connecting clients directly with produce from Fulton Farm.

Why does Wilson need Sarah’s Cupboard as a resource? Over 98% of Wilson students receive some level of financial aid. Many students, particularly our commuter students, work full- or part-time as they complete their education. Some of these students have to make tough decisions about spending their money. For some, the choice may be putting gas in their car, paying bills, or eating. As students are investing in their education, we at Wilson are investing in students. A student who does not have to worry about where their next meal may be coming from is better able to focus on classwork and homework and will have a higher success rate.

Originally, we distributed only shelf-stable food items ranging from small snacks like chips and granola bars to pasta and sauce to peanut butter and jelly. Later, we obtained a refrigerator and freezer and added fresh items like milk and eggs to our inventory. In recent years, we added hygiene items ranging from soap, shampoos, and deodorant to laundry pods to period products, thanks to the feedback we got from clients and student need.

When the campus reopened to students, for a multitude of pandemic-related economic reasons, we had a surge of participants seeking access to food. We focused on making the process as easy and stigma-free as possible. To this end, we created Sarah’s Cupboard Identification Cards. These IDs do not contain a user’s personal information but allow us to track usage data anonymously.

“As a college student myself, I am aware of the financial and logistical struggles that college students face. Many have never been away from home for an extended period before and don’t know the importance of getting good food for cheap to keep them full and able to learn at their highest capacity,” said Rebecca Galvin ’23, a co-author of this article and the student manager of the Cupboard this year. “Making the Cupboard as friendly and welcoming as possible is something that I take very seriously. I plan more outreach to all who need support, whether small or large. An important population of students that I hope to reach are those who may not consider themselves food insecure but are always looking for a snack or a small meal (maybe late at night) to keep them going.”

We hope to make the Cupboard a resource comparable to the Academic Success Center or the Counseling Center in terms of the number of students that use it. Over the last semester, Galvin led the project to organize all of the data accumulated over the previous six years. We were amazed to see that even with the lowering of numbers through COVID, the Cupboard had still been used over 800 times. That number inspired us to attempt to create a space where, hopefully, that number will exponentially increase in the next six years. And recently, we have collaborated with Sage Dining, the campus catering vendor, to provide food boxes to students who must stay on campus during long breaks when dining services are closed.

Last fall Wilson applied for and received the PA Hunger-Free Campus+ designation. This is a new program that then-First Lady of Pennsylvania Frances Wolf sponsored. Food security issues in education are a big passion for Mrs. Wolf. Last year saw a push to include $1 million in the PA state budget for food security issues on college and university campuses. As part of that, the PA Hunger-Free Campus+ designation was created to recognize campuses that are doing a variety of things to combat food security issues and awareness in stigma-free environments (like Sarah’s Cupboard has been doing!). Once we received that designation, we were invited to apply for a grant through this initiative, which we also received. The grant will allow us to raise awareness of food security issues further and expand our services, connect more students with available services in the community, and partner with local agencies to support their efforts in these areas.

The AAWC has continued to support Sarah’s Cupboard through donations and funds.

Through regular donations from both the association and individuals, and by responding to emergency requests for specific needs, the Wilson community has been a tremendous asset to the Cupboard and helped it succeed in its mission. 