The new agreement with PCOM provides two alternatives, the first being an accelerated 3+4 program in which students take three years of undergraduate and pre-med education at Mercyhurst and four years of medical education at the affiliate institution. Upon completing their freshman year at the affiliate institution, students will receive their bachelor’s degree in biology from Mercyhurst. The second option is the traditional 4+4 academic program.

This comes as good news to the growing number of students electing the pre-health track at Mercyhurst, said Dr. Steven Mauro, who heads the university’s pre-health advising office.

The new affiliation offers students more flexibility and choices, especially those who qualify for the 3+4 program, which essentially saves an entire year in time and expense.

Mercyhurst already maintains affiliation agreements of a similar nature with the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine’s medical and pharmacy schools, the Ohio College of Podiatric Medicine and the New York Chiropractic College.

Mauro said the growth of the university’s pre-health programs is largely responsible for the increasing number of students choosing to major in biology at Mercyhurst. In 2007, the university enrolled 24 biology majors, climbing to 25 in 2008, 40 in 2009, 40 in 2010 and 46 in 2011.

Besides a strong academic program, a supportive environment and affiliation agreements with highly respected medical institutions, the university is also witnessing success placing students in health professional schools, Mauro said.

In the past four years, students have been accepted into prestigious programs at the University of Illinois at Chicago (PharmD/PhD joint program); Penn State, George Washington University and Thomas Jefferson University (medical school); Case Western and the University of Buffalo (dental school); North Carolina State and the University of Missouri (veterinary school); the University of Pittsburgh (pharmacy school) and the University of Colorado (physician assistant school).

SISTER CAROLYN HERRMANN

The motion was co-sponsored by Trustee Chair Marlene Mosco, Mercyhurst President Dr. Tom Gamble and Sister JoAnne Courneen, RSM.

In a related development, the trustees voted to award the lifetime status of Trustee Emerita to Jane Theuerkauf upon her anticipated retirement from the board at its upcoming May 5 meeting. And Myron Jones, a newly retired trustee with 25 years of service to the board, was recently named Trustee Emeritus.

Mercyhurst history records “Sister Carolyn” as a remarkable leader – a brave, charismatic woman, gifted as a scholar and talented as an administrator. She was the first executive vice president of the college and the first religious from the Erie Regional Community to hold the title of president of Mercyhurst College, having been duly elected and not serving ex officio by virtue of being superior of her religious congregation.

Most noteworthy is her vision in spiriting the change from a 43-year-old college for women to a coeducational institution in 1969, a decision that likely paved the way for Mercyhurst’s award of “university status” some 43 years later on Jan. 23, 2012.

JANE THEUERKAUF

In naming Jane Theuerkauf Trustee Emerita, the board sought to recognize Theuerkauf’s 46 years of service and philanthropy to Mercyhurst. She has been affiliated with the university longer than any other trustee or lay adviser.
She was named a member of the institution’s board of lay advisers in 1966, when she helped form the original Carpe Diem Society. At the time, she was president of Jane Theuerkauf Realtor and was highly sought after to share her leadership abilities. She was nominated for trusteeship in 1971 and went on to be elected the first lay chair of the Mercyhurst board in 1979.

In addition to being a "first" in lay woman leadership at Mercyhurst, she was the first woman president of the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors, first woman in the country to sit on the General Telephone Co. board of directors, first woman to sit on and later chair the Fannie Mae board in Washington, D.C., and first woman chair of the Saint Vincent Health Center board of trustees.

Besides being recognized for her business savvy and board leadership, Theuerkauf was also known for her athletic abilities as a five-time city tennis champion and a past president of the Erie District Women’s Golf Association.

MYRON JONES

Myron Jones, who joined the Mercyhurst board in 1987, was recognized by the trustees for his years of service and philanthropy and for being the guiding force behind establishing radio station WMCE-FM on the university's Erie campus and WYNE-AM at the North East campus.

He is the retired chief executive officer ofWJET Broadcasting Co., which he founded in 1951. In the late 1980s, he converted WJET-AM 1400 to WJET-FM 102. He established Erie's first color television station, WJET-TV, which later became the first television station in Erie to use videotape in gathering news.

In addition to his engineering achievements, Jones won industry recognition for his programming expertise and community service. Each of his radio stations in Erie, Pittsburgh and Youngstown achieved top rankings in their respective markets. He is a former recipient of the Radio Broadcaster of the Year award from the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters.

A native of Youngstown, Jones retired in 2001, having spent his professional career as a pioneer in radio and television broadcasting.

• Tyler Stauffer, for “Slemer Mark VI number 6,” acrylic on stretched paper
• J. John Thiede, for “Drag Queen and Chair,” archived inkjet print
• Jillian Barrile, for “Untitled,” digital photograph
• Sarah Blair, for “Dress Patterns,” acrylic paint on canvas

Receiving Honorable Mentions were:

• Durim Loshaj, for “Euclidean Space,” acrylic on canvas
• Tracy M. Howland, for “Just a Dream,” oil on canvas
• Rodolfos Claros, for “Restaurant Door,” digital photography
• Erin McCandless, for “View From Notre Dame,” photography
• Karma Smith, for “(Self Portrait) The Monster in the Mirror,” charcoal, conte, prismacolor on paper

More than 40 Mercyhurst student artists are represented in this year’s exhibit, which includes ceramics, sculpture, photography, painting and drawing.

The Juried Student Art Show remains on display in Mercyhurst’s Cummings Gallery through March 18, although the gallery will be closed Feb. 23-March 4 during term break.

Cummings Gallery, located in the lobby of the Mary D’Angelo Performing Arts Center, is open Tuesday-Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. and Thursday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m. Call 824-2092 for more information.

Launched in 2006, the coalition encourages U.S. Catholics to understand and act on the threat of climate change from a Catholic perspective. The pledge asks Catholic individuals, parishes and institutions to pray and learn about climate change, to assess their own environmental impact, to act to reduce their impact and to advocate for policies and initiatives that protect the environment and the world’s poor.

“By becoming partners in the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change, Mercyhurst continues a longstanding commitment toward sustainability and environmental stewardship in a way that is consistent with our mission and a Catholic value system that focuses on the impact of climate change on the poor and vulnerable in our world,” Gamble said.

Mercyhurst is well known as a leader in sustainability among U.S. colleges and universities. Besides academic initiatives, like a new major in sustainability studies, Mercyhurst maintains ongoing projects in the areas of recycling and energy conservation, including the use of wind power to meet 100 percent of its electric needs.

In 2007, Gamble joined several hundred college and university presidents in signing the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, which obligates Mercyhurst to a goal of carbon neutrality.

Plans in support of the university’s new partnership with the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change will be implemented through Mercyhurst Campus Ministry, which serves as the spiritual center for campus life. Initially, Campus Ministry intends to foster awareness of the coalition’s mission, using a number of events planned during the March observance of Mercy Month, said Christine Brotherson, assistant director of Campus Ministry. Meanwhile, members of the Mercyhurst community are encouraged to sign the St. Francis Pledge, which can be done online at http://catholicclimatecovenant.org/the-st-francis-pledge./

Other colleges and universities that are partners in the Catholic Coalition are the College of St. Benedict, University of Notre Dame, St. Michael’s College and Salve Regina University.

MERCYHURST FARM IN WEST COUNTY

Phase I – measuring carbon levels in soil samples at the Mercyhurst University West Campus farm – is done. Now, student researcher and senior biology major Ellen Teygart is gearing up for Phase II – building a pyrolyzer.

A pyrolyzer heats organic matter like forest brush and corn husks without oxygen and converts it to biochar, which acts as a soil additive and sequesters carbon dioxide. When added to the soil, biochar acts like a giant carbon sponge holding in moisture and nutrients that boost crop yields.

“The basic design of a pyrolyzer is simple. In this case, I’m using two steel barrels, almost like a backyard oven, to heat the organic matter,” Teygart said. “I hope to have the unit done by April.”

It’s all part of a Campus Ecology Fellowship Teygart received from the National Wildlife Federation. The goal of her research is to increase carbon sequestration in soil as a way of offsetting the greenhouse gases produced by electricity consumption on Mercyhurst’s campuses.

Teygart spent the past year testing soil on the university’s 400-acre property, including woods, wetlands, conventionally tilled land and fallow land (land left unseeded during a growing season). As expected, she said, the woodlands soil sequestered the most carbon, while the conventionally tilled land, the least.

The plan now is to use the fallow land as a testing ground for infusing biochar as a soil amendment.

“Over the next couple of years, we will want to see if the biochar keeps carbon in the soil and if that increases soil fertility,” Teygart said. “We are really hoping to go beyond environmental stewardship to actually increase crop yield.”

Teygart’s research adviser, Dr. Mike Campbell, professor of biology at Mercyhurst, said her project directly supports sustainability education and research initiatives at the college’s farm. For several years, biology faculty Dr. Marlene Cross and Dr. Michael Elnitsky along with dozens of students have been conducting research to evaluate how agricultural practices affect the microbes and animals that inhabit the soil ecosystem and the quality of the food produced.

Today the research of eminent archaeologists like Dr. James Adovasio, director of the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute and a specialist in the analysis of perishable material culture (basketry, textiles, cordage, etc.), have demonstrated how fiber artifacts afford us glimpses into past cultures at a personal level.

The research of Adovasio and of Mercyhurst colleague Edward Jolie was recently chronicled in an article, “The Fiber of Their Being: Direct Dating Fiber Artifacts,” published in the January 2012 issue of Mammoth Trumpet, a publication of the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A & M University.

Adovasio also had an article, “The Appearance of Plant Fiber Artifacts: A Late Ice-Age Event Horizon,” published in a French mainstream science magazine called Sciences et Avenir. The magazine’s November 2011 issue addressed the theme of What Makes Us Human? Adovasio’s piece focused on textile artifacts as a signature of humanity.

In a related development, textile specialist Dr. Jeffrey Splitstoser from the American Museum of Natural History is on campus this month studying ancient South American materials from the north coast of Peru. The artifacts are being studied in the university’s R. L. Andrews Center for Perishables Analysis, the only lab of its kind in North America dedicated to analyzing prehistoric and historic perishable artifacts.

Several months ago, two representatives of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey (ISAS) and a student from Illinois State University visited the university's unique lab for a one-week crash course on perishable artifacts.

Each year AFCEA awards two undergraduate “intelligence scholarships” in the amount of $2,250 each to students enrolled full-time in an undergraduate degree-granting program in fields directly related to the support of U.S. intelligence or homeland security enterprises and/or foreign languages. These are merit scholarships based on demonstrated academic excellence, leadership and financial need.

Mercyhurst has been well represented in AFCEA’s scholarship program in recent years with Cara Cantakis winning one of the two awards in 2011 and JoEllen Marsh taking one of two in 2010.

Vuksic, a junior from McMinnville, Ore., is double-majoring in intelligence studies and Russian. He has studied abroad in Russia and has an “academic record that is one of the most accomplished within the department,” according to a faculty recommendation that accompanied his scholarship application. “… He is extremely driven and motivated to be the best in our program.”

Joseph Reinhard, a junior from Painesville, Ohio, maintains a heavy course load, including Mandarin, and has a current GPA of 3.91. He brings a “can-do work ethic to every project he does,” according to his faculty recommendation. “He is mature, quickly grasps terms of reference and has excellent communication skills.”

AFCEA is a non-profit membership association serving the military, government, industry, and academia as an ethical forum for advancing professional knowledge and relationships in the fields of communications, information technology, intelligence, and global security. The undergraduate Intelligence Scholarships were made possible by a contribution from the sponsor, Terremark Worldwide, Inc.

Students were encouraged to enter up to three pieces in any medium for consideration by local artists who serve as jurors. This year’s jurors – photographer Patty Baldwin and sculptor Brian Pardini – chose 58 works by 41 artists for inclusion in the exhibit. The varied pieces include ceramics, sculpture, photography, painting and drawing. The jurors will announce their choices for Mercyhurst University Purchase Awards and Juror’s Honorable Mentions during the Feb. 16 reception.

Baldwin is an artist and photographer who has taught photography for 25 years, locally and in Colorado. For 15 years she photographed her grandmother, focusing on their unique relationship and capturing the process of aging. She received her MFA in photography from the Cranbrook Academy of Art and has more than 20 years teaching experience with children, teens and adults.

Pardini is a sculptor who searches the Lake Erie shoreline for unique pieces of driftwood which become, with varying degrees of manipulation, a myriad of real and imagined life forms. He began making art in the mid-1990s after 25 years of renovating and building rural and urban homes using primarily recycled materials.

The Juried Student Art Show remains on display through March 18, although the gallery will be closed Feb. 23-March 4 during Mercyhurst’s term break.

Cummings Gallery, located in the lobby of the Mary D’Angelo Performing Arts Center, is open Tuesday-Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. and Thursday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m. Call 824-2092 for more information or look for Cummings Art Gallery on Facebook.

The new program, designed for qualified undergraduates with a minimum GPA of 3.5 or higher, enables Mercyhurst students to apply to GSPIA during their junior year and earn admission to a master’s degree program nearly a year earlier than the general public, contingent upon completion of a Mercyhurst bachelor’s degree. It further ensures an annual merit scholarship of at least $5,000 and the opportunity to earn additional scholarship monies from GSPIA at higher levels, which are subject to renewal requirements.

“Mercyhurst is proud to partner with GSPIA in this first-of-its-kind program, an agreement forged in large part due to the significant number of highly qualified Mercyhurst graduates who attend and succeed in their program,” said Dr. Randy Clemons, dean of the school of social sciences and professor of political science.

Clemons estimated that in the past decade, Mercyhurst has been one of GSPIA’s top feeder schools with students pursuing graduate studies in security and intelligence studies, global political economy, public and nonprofit management, urban and regional affairs, policy research and analysis and development planning and environmental sustainability, among others.

“Mercyhurst is one of our top four feeder programs, after Penn State, Duquesne, and the University of Pittsburgh itself,” confirmed Michael Rizzi, GSPIA associate director of student services. “When you realize that each of those schools enrolls a student body two to 10 times larger than Mercyhurst’s, it’s especially impressive. The fact that a small school in Erie can produce so many high-quality students is enough to make graduate schools like ours sit up and take notice.

“When we wanted to establish a relationship with a top undergraduate program, Mercyhurst was by far the most obvious first choice. We wanted to recognize the enormous contribution Mercyhurst alumni have made to our campus and offer a special incentive for others to follow in their footsteps.”

The event is sponsored by the Mercyhurst University chapter of UNICEF and the Social Work Club in collaboration with The Children & Youth AmeriCorps VISTA Project of Northwest Pennsylvania. The presentation is free and open to the public.

More than 1.4 billion people in the world live in extreme poverty - that's 1.4 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day, according to The Global Poverty Project.

The presentation is built around five sections:
• What is extreme poverty?
• Can we do anything about it?
• What are the barriers to ending extreme poverty?
• Why should we care?
• What can I do?

“I came across The Global Poverty Project at The Millennium Campus Conference that was held this year at Harvard University in early September and was deeply inspired,” said Marta Baran, Mercyhurst alumna and AmericCorps VISTA Leader with the Nonprofit Partnership in Erie. “I want to share the message with everyone that we all can make small commitments every day and together fight for the end of poverty. Erie is definitely a ‘huge heart community’ and, so, I thought that this presentation would be warmly welcomed.”

For more information, contact Baran at 454-8800, ext. 2, and visit the The Global Poverty Project website for more on its work.