Students ‘dance in the moonlight’ at club formal
Stars, confetti and navy blue curtains brought back an old-school style at “Dancing in the Moonlight,” the first co-sponsored formal held by Ballroom Dance Club and Swing Club. The dance took place Friday night in the Stepan Center. Junior Allison Kincaid, co-president of Swing Club, said the night was a success for both clubs. “We not only had over 100 people but everyone was dancing and enjoying the night up until the very end. The food was delicious, the DJ was fun, and everyone looked fabulous dressed up in formal wear,” she said. “I’m definitely glad that we were able to do the confetti drop at 11:11:11. It was definitely a starry night under the moon.” Kincaid said the night allowed club members and non-members to meet new people. “What is awesome about these kind of events is that it encourages people to branch out, at least that’s the nature of Swing,” she said. “I definitely met some new and fun people and had a great time dancing with them!” Junior Joshua Gaston, Swing Club treasurer, said the event also allowed dancers to improve their style, though there was no formal lesson. “That was one of the purposes of this dance: to expand people’s views of dance and invite them to explore further,” he said. “Plus, people just straight up improved. The best example was when I led a samba line for a whole song without knowing how to Samba.” Gaston said the groundwork for “Dancing in the Moonlight” was laid last year with the debut of their first swing formal. “The event last year was such a success that it wasn’t a question that another formal would happen this year,” he said. “Moreover, the Swing and Ballroom clubs at the end of last year decided to make a more conscious effort to co-exist as two clubs which catered to the same audience.” Gaston said that after Activities Night, the two clubs met with the Student Activities Office, gathered decorations and found a DJ. “There were calls to SAO, long chats between club officers … last minute panicking, etc, etc,” he said. Juniors Emily Palid and Mike Marszowski, co-presidents of Ballroom Dance Club, said the officers from both clubs made a huge effort to make the night a success. “Josh Gaston deserves special thanks for coordinating between the two clubs and heading up the event,” Marszowski said. “We’d also love the thank our set up crew, especially Jen Martynowicz, Emily Palid and Paul Minutolo.” Gaston said the Swing Club also wanted to recognize senior Andy Fotsch for his contributions, as well as the clean up crew. “Confetti was awesome, but time consuming to clean up,” he said. Palid, Marszowski and Gaston said they agreed the wide variety of styles in swing, classical ballroom and Latin dance meant there was something for everyone to enjoy. “The styles of ballroom and swing allow people to do so much more than just sway back and forth,” Gaston said. “Whether it’s a beautiful waltz, a dramatic tango,or a jaw dropping lindy, these allow people to expand their dancing to more music than ever thought possible.” The club officers said there were many opportunities for students interested in learning more about the two styles of dance. Both clubs’ representatives said they hold weekly lessons and sponsor other events as well. “In the past we’ve had the Swing-a-thon in order to raise money for charity. At Legends there’s also ‘Swing Night’ at least once, sometimes twice, a semester,” Kincaid said. “Furthermore, we offer trips outside the South Bend area. It gives our club members a chance to see what the Swing Scene is like in other places, learn new styles and meet new and awesome people.” Kincaid said the two clubs offered students social interaction and the opportunity to learn basic dancing skills. “Mixing good dance moves, music and people together always creates something unique,” she said. “We provide a casual, fun atmosphere for people to take a break from studies and learn how to move their feet.”
Several St. Mary’s and Notre Dame students volunteered their time Saturday during Mahoney Family Dentistry’s second annual “Dentistry from the Heart” event, providing 297 people in the South Bend community with free dental care. Close to 200 people camped out the night before to ensure a spot for the 6 a.m. registration. A total of five local dentists and 75 volunteers, under the leadership of Dr. Terrance Mahoney, provided exams, cleanings and fillings for underprivileged citizens 18 years old and older, Dr. Mahoney said. “You get back more than you are giving and to know you can make a difference in someone’s life is so rewarding,” Dr. Mahoney said. “Access to care is the major problem in dental health care right now because many people don’t have insurance.” Dr. Mahoney said this year’s “Dentistry from the Heart” event provided close to $125,000 in dental work. The money came from both Mahoney Family Dentistry and generous donations from sponsors such as Heraeus Dental Supplies, he said. Volunteers ranged from Notre Dame seniors planning to attend dental school to parishioners of local churches, he said. Dental students from the community also gathered to provide education and advice on oral health to those waiting outside. St. Mary’s junior Kathryn Mahoney and daughter of Dr. Mahoney said she felt honored to be able to give back. “It was a great opportunity to serve the community,” Kathryn Mahoney said. “It was truly an amazing experience to see so many different people come together and help provide such an expensive necessity for absolutely free.” St. Mary’s junior and volunteer Brookelin Propestsaid it was a day well spent. “Dr. Mahoney and his office touched the lives of both the people who received the free dental care and the volunteers who witnessed it,” Propes said. “Everyone involved made a huge impact in the lives of the community.” Local businesses Einstein Bagels, Martin’s Supermarket and Papa Vino’s provided breakfast and lunch throughout the day, and Kevin’s Guitar Studio students played live entertainment throughout the afternoon. From registration at 6 a.m. to the final person served at 8 p.m., Dr. Mahoney said the day was a successful one for the community. “The people were extremely thankful and many of them shed tears of gratitude,” Dr. Mahoney said. Mahoney Family Dentistry will also be holding a free day of dental care just for children in February. Dr. Mahoney said he and his associates hope to see even more students from the Saint Mary’s and Notre Dame communities for another day of giving back.
The opening of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” this weekend will mark the culmination of nearly one year’s worth of preparation for the Pasquerilla East Musical Company (PEMCo.). “This season started with ‘Next to Normal’ back in October, but really the whole process of this started in the beginning of March last year,” senior PEMCo. producer Nathan Williams said. “How to Succeed” is the second show in PEMCo’s 2012-13 lineup and Williams said he is pleased with the group’s progress as Thursday’s opening night nears. “It’s really come together in a fun way I think,” Williams said. “I’d seen it before and I didn’t like it; I thought it was dated and sexist, but then watching this whole vibe of the ’60s and this whole nostalgic kind of thing, it’s really fun.” Sophomore director Shannon Kirk explained that the show’s seemingly-sexist humor is satirical. “It’s similar to ‘Mad Men’ in that when you’re watching it, obviously the characters aren’t self-aware that it’s sexist,” Kirk said. “It’s just from our perspective of watching it and how the actors portray it now. You have the retrospective awareness, and it adds so many more layers to [the show] from when it originally premiered.” Kirk noted that the recent popularity of ’60s-era television shows like “Mad Men” influenced the choice of “How to Succeed” after the group was unable to secure rights to the original selection, “My Fair Lady.” “With this we were trying to think of things that people would want to audition for and people would want to come see,” Kirk said. While the show wasn’t the troupe’s first choice, Kirk said she is pleased with the outcome. “I’m actually really glad we got to do this,” she said. “‘My Fair Lady’ is probably a better show overall if it’s done perfectly, but this is definitely a more fun show to do in terms of ensemble involvement, and this is more of a comedy.” Williams said while keeping the cast focused and motivated could be challenging, ultimately the entertaining rehearsals and valuable friendships formed made the long process worthwhile. “I think part of the challenge is just maintaining it over such a long process,” he said. “We started with auditions in late October and rehearsals right after that … and then there’s a month off in the middle.” Despite the demands of a lengthy schedule, Kirk praised her cast’s commitment to the show. “Energy hasn’t been much of a problem actually,” she said. “I think people just really enjoy the show and they kind of feed off each other’s energy and the energy the music is bringing.” Kirk whittled the cast down from 100 hopefuls who turned up at the first auditions to the final cast of around 25 people, Williams said. During callbacks, Kirk said she was able to customize the somewhat-flexible characters to fit the potential actors. “[The main character] Finch could be very cute and ambitious, or he could be very conniving, and I like the cute, ambitious one better because then by the end of the show you’re not sick of him,” Kirk said. As a nonacademic organization, PEMCo. offers an opportunity for a diverse array of students – across both majors and class years – to collaborate together. In his PEMCo. debut, freshman Joel Ostdiek portrays rising business star J. Pierrepont Finch. “Joel’s doing great,” Williams said before Tuesday night’s dress rehearsal. Senior Claire Lis, who plays Rosemary Pilkington, agreed. “He came in at the first rehearsal and was thanking everyone and talking about how honored he was to be there,” she said. “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” opens at Washington Hall Thursday at 7:30 pm. Tickets can be purchased in the LaFortune Box Office.
Grammy-nominated rapper B.o.B. will take the stage at the Compton Family Ice Arena to perform as part of SUB’s 2013 AnTostal week-long event Tostalpalooza on Friday. Senior Danny Kinasz, a member of SUB’s concert committee, helped plan the event. He said the concert tickets cost $20. The concert is open to all Notre Dame undergraduate and graduate students as well as Saint Mary’s and Holy Cross students, he said. Unlike previous years, this SUB concert will take place in Compton rather than at the Stepan Center. Kinasz said the decision to move the concert was a group effort of the SUB executive board, concert programmers and SAO supervisor Josh Wilson. “We saw the opportunity to upgrade the concert to a newer and larger venue to respond to the requests of the students,” he said. Kinasz said frequent complaints from students about the concert in the past stemmed from the distant venue location. “People complained that Stepan was a buzzkill to the fun vibe the concert created,” he said. “We wanted to enhance the student experience and bring the show into a new venue that would create a dramatically better concert going experience.” In the past, Kinasz said the committee was experienced at coordinating all the necessary elements to the show, but this move to Compton required meetings with different University groups in order to organize and work out any issues. “This year was a whole new experience which required lots of additional planning.” SUB first had to set a date suitable to the schedules of the Compton staff, Kinasz said. They also had to meet with production officials and consider additional requirements, like light and sound equipment, needed for a larger venue, he said. “It is a larger overall production to match the larger venue,” he said. “[It] requires University-wide effort to make the show a success.” The committee also met with NDSP, the fire department, ushers and medical staff in order to ensure the location change would be a success, he said. The committee also considered hiring additional support staff including more ushers, first aid workers and security, he said. “Compton does not have all the resources that we were used to having in Stepan so we needed to ensure that we were able to obtain all those in order to make the show and its set up possible,” Kinasz said. A larger venue also meant the need for increased publicity. Kinasz said there was an emphasis on getting the word out to more students since more tickets were available. “To make this show a success we want the support of the student body which has been generating greater interest than in years past,” he said. As for picking the performing artist for the concert, that decision reached back to midway through the fall semester, he said. Kinasz said SUB released a survey to the student body with about six artists as potential headliners for the show, and B.o.B. came out as the winner. “We made it one of [our] mains goals from the start of the year to listen to the student body and bring in an artists that they wanted to see perform,” he said. Kinasz said the negotiation process involved speaking with B.o.B.’s agent at the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in order to finalize a contract for the show. Besides verifying his availability for the scheduled date of the performance, negotiations on contractual issues and logistical questions were also considered. “It took a couple of weeks of negotiation and lots of communication to successfully work out the contract,” he said. As of now, Kinasz said about 2,000 tickets have been sold and they are hoping to have at least 3,500 attendees. He also said two sets of tickets are available, one which provides floor access and a second for seats surrounding the floor. Since tickets do not provide an assigned seat, students may choose to move about their sections, he said. Tickets are available for purchase up until the show in the LaFortune Box Office between 9:30 a.m. and midnight. Kinasz said students may also obtain their tickets at Antostal events during the week or from ticket sales in the dorms by SUB representatives. Compton’s doors open at 7:30 p.m, and the concert begins at 8:30 p.m. with the opener Dzeko & Torres, a Canadian DJ duo. “This concert is going to be a fun, high energy, exciting concert,” Kinasz said. “If you›re the type of person who likes to have a good time and likes music, you can›t find a better show than this.” These two performers know how to put on a great show and keep the crowd entertained, he said. Kinasz said SUB believes this show in Compton will start an “exciting new tradition of a bigger, better and more memorable show for the student body.” “I can guarantee that this show will be unlike any that any current Notre Dame student has witnessed on campus while they have been here,” Kinasz said. “Those who go will remember it forever and those who miss it will regret for even longer.” Contact Carolyn Hutyra at 
Saint Mary’s students interested in summer service may want to consider applying for the Holy Cross Ministries Utah Summer Program in Salt Lake City. The Sisters of the Holy Cross in Utah are looking for enthusiastic, service-minded students to help with a summer education program for elementary school-aged children. “It’s something we have been doing for quite some time,” Sr. Mary Ann Pajakowski, director of education for Holy Cross Ministries, said. “The summer service program gives students the opportunity to engage in more outreach projects.”Office of Civic and Social Engagement (OCSE) representative Erika Buhring said the Sisters run the program for approximately 200 elementary school children in first through fifth grade during the summer months. The Utah Summer Program is the College’s largest summer service program. While other summer opportunities generally allow students to spend a couple weeks doing service, this opportunity spans a period of eight weeks.The Utah Program currently offers students numerous opportunities for education experience, including working with children on mathematics, creating fun activities and going to the pool.Junior Meaghan Garofalo said her favorite experience involved taking the students to the pool and helping them learn how to swim. She also said she enjoyed working with the Sisters of the Holy Cross and spending time with them and her fellow peers in the program.“It’s hard to choose one favorite activity,” Garofalo said. “The entire Utah program was just amazing.” According to the OCSE application, college participants are provided housing through Saint Mary’s and Notre Dame alumni who live in the area. Host families provide interns with both housing and meals. Garofalo said she was placed with a graduate of Saint Mary’s and appreciated the opportunity to connect with an SMC alumna. The experience was humbling, Garofalo said. “Many of the children that I worked with were in hard situations, but they highly valued obtaining their education,” she said. According to the OCSE application, the population of the area is largely Latino, and knowledge of Spanish is helpful. “The students we worked with were adorable and incredible,” Garofalo said. “So many of them were bilingual [in English and Spanish], but continually, they were working their hardest to improve their language skills.” Buhring said interns are expected to manage a group of about 12 kids, plan the programs and provide a different theme every week.Despite the large number of applicants, OCSE only selects two Saint Mary’s students to participate in the program. The deadline for applying to the Utah Summer Service Program is March 7, 2014.Tags: Holy Cross Ministries
A summit held at Loyola University Chicago allowed students to learn, network and take action on immigration reform.The program began with a general organizational and strategy session, followed by four sessions on messaging, lobbying politics and policy, organizing fundamentals, and coalition-building, according to the summit’s website.Jessica Pedroza, the Notre Dame campus organizer for Faith in Public Life, said the summit Saturday hosted over 120 college students from nine area universities seeking to advance immigration reform.Pedroza said students were able to meet students and faculty from other Catholic schools who were involved in prominent activities in an effort to share ideas and light the pathway to reform.Pedroza said the time for immigration reform action is now.“A path to citizenship will stop the fear that many children feel, not knowing if they will come home to parents gone,” Pedroza said.She said the group hoped to demonstrate Notre Dame’s commitment to reforming a broken immigration system in America and keeping immigrant families together by attending the summit.“[Undocumented children of immigrants who have lived in America all their lives] came here through no fault of their own and should be recognized as the Americans they grew up to be, with a chance to contribute and receive an education,” Pedroza said.She said the summit gave college students an important opportunity to hear other people’s ideas and learn about what different colleges are doing in response to immigration issues in America.“There is strength in the unity and numbers of people who get together for one common cause,” Pedroza said.The Notre Dame group now seeks to take what they learned at the Summit and bring it to the student body, she said. The group is already planning ways to implement immigration reform actions at Notre Dame.“This is an important issue that is not talked about very much at all so with enough planning and promotion we can create events to shed light on the immigration,” Pedroza said.She said the group aimed to build awareness at Notre Dame and also engage the South Bend, Saint Mary’s and Holy Cross communities. She said a major goal was to plan an Immigration Week on campus filled with events to help raise awareness on the issue at Notre Dame.Pedroza, along with the other summit attendees, said she wants to bring the stories of the multitude of families that immigration reform would help to the Notre Dame community.“It is not all about facts and statistics,” Pedroza said. “It is about 11 million stories of real people who are affected by the broken immigration system.”Tags: Immigration
Philip K. Howard, author of “The Rule of Nobody: Saving America from Dead Laws and Broken Government,” spoke Thursday evening and addressed the question, “Can American Government Be Fixed?” The answer, he said, is yes, but it requires a complete overhaul of the current system.Annette Sayre | The Observer “We’ve tried to create a system of government in an effort to make sure things work properly that is structurally paralyzed,” Howard said. “We hoped that we would protect ourselves and enhance our freedoms by making sure government didn’t do things wrong. Not only did we make government ineffective, but we are also shackling our own freedom.”Howard gave a survey of the different ideas about why government is ineffective and the methods to solve it. “President Obama appointed the most brilliant regulatory scholar in America, Cass Sunstein, to come in and run his regulatory reform efforts,” Howard said. “He probably fixed scores of them out of about 500,000.”“Another common solution is that we just need less polarization,” Howard said. But, according to Howard, the problem wouldn’t be solved if parties came together and compromised. “The problem is … we’ll drive over a fiscal cliff holding hands, but it wouldn’t really do much for the country in my view.”Howard praised the populist energy of the Tea Party but disagreed with the view that government has to be eliminated to the maximum extent.“I think in a modern interdependent world [with] globalized economies we need government oversight for clean air, clean water, to make sure our toys don’t have lead paint on them,” he said.While Howard called the Tea Party’s solution wrong, he said he believed their anger and energy was justified.Howard also criticized the notion that better leadership could fix government.“The truth is, I argue, George Washington if reincarnated could not run this country,” Howard said. “The reason is that law has piled up … like sediment in the harbor so it’s impossible, it’s illegal, to do anything sensibly in our society.”Howard illustrated the legal obstacles people faced when trying to do the right thing. He spoke of one incident in New Jersey where it took twelve days and $12,000 in legal fees to remove a tree branch from a creek after a flood.Howard argued American government has two fatal flaws.“The first is that we don’t have the idea that law has to adapt to changing circumstances. We treat every law like it’s the Ten Commandments even though at this point it’s the 10 million commandments,” Howard said.“The second problem … is that we have this modern philosophy that prevents humans on a daily basis from adapting to the circumstances,” Howard said. He compared the 29-page interstate highway bill that created 41,000 miles of highway in the 1950’s to the current 584-page transportation bill that “hasn’t done anything yet because no one can get approval to start.”Howard said government’s attempts to make the law clear have simply made it become overbearing. “It’s central planning, it’s not the rule of law, it’s not a legal system allowing people to go forth during the day and exercise their freedom to try and make things happen,” Howard said. “It’s like Soviet central planning except the planners are dead … democracy really, is run by dead people.”“I’m not optimistic … but I do have hope,” Howard said. The solution calls for a redesignation of the laws, similar to the establishment of the Uniform Commercial Code in the 1950s, and in history with Justinian and Napoleon, he said. “Every time there has been a recodification it has been like replacing a muddy road with a paved highway,” Howard said.“The simple message here, harsh but simple, is that American government is broken, everybody knows it,” Howard said. “So if we want things to work we’re gonna have to give humans responsibility again and that requires completely rebuilding our system of government.”Tags: American Government, gridlock, legal system, Philip K. Howard
Saint Mary’s athletic department will host over 80 girls from the South Bend area tonight for a sports clinic in celebration of National Girls and Women in Sports Day.Cross country coach and director of student athlete affairs Jackie Bauters said National Girls and Women in Sports Day is celebrated annually during the first week of February. The College’s athletic department received funds from the NCAA to put on an initiative of their choice, and they decided to host a clinic for girls ages six to 12, Bauters said.Saint Mary’s director of athletics Julie Schroeder-Biek said each of the College’s eight varsity sports teams will host a 30-minute session, and the attendees will choose to attend four of those sessions.Bauters said student-athletes will lead the sessions. She said about three-fourths of the student-athletes have helped with the clinic in some way, whether they are leading the sessions or have helped advertise them.Schroeder-Biek said the student-athletes have worked with their coaches to design the 30-minute sessions, though working the clinic wasn’t mandatory for athletes.“I think it speaks wonders of our student-athletes and their passion for sport,” Schroeder-Biek said. “The students are being empowered to do the teaching and break the skills down through drill.”Bauters said research shows girls that get involved with athletics are more confident in dealing with potential dangers as they grow up. The program is two-fold, she said.“For girls that are already involved in sports, [the clinic] will show how you can continue with an athletic career and you can go to college and play,” Bauters said. “For the girls who haven’t been involved in sports, it’s finding a way for them to use their body in a healthy way.”Schroeder-Biek said the clinic will show girls the fun of sports and the student-athletes will serve as mentors for the young participants in the clinic.“A lot of times, competitive sports are introduced too early,” she said. “Six year-olds should know the fun of sport and see the social side of sport.”Schroeder-Biek said the clinic is a perfect fit for the mission of the athletic department.“We want the [participants] to be exposed to these wonderful role models,” she said. “Our student-athletes play Division III [athletics], where you play for the passion of sport; you don’t play because you’re on an athletic scholarship.”Schroeder-Biek said while young girls may not get exposure to sports like golf and lacrosse in elementary and middle school, Saint Mary’s has a wide spectrum of sports, including basketball, cross country, lacrosse, volleyball, golf, tennis, soccer and softball.The clinic filled quickly through advertising on social media and personal contacts, Bauters said.Schroeder-Biek said the athletic department is interested in making the clinic a regular event in upcoming years.Tags: Jackie Bauters, Julie Schroeder-Biek, National Girls and Women in Sports Day clinic, sports clinic
Editor’s Note: This is the fifth installment of a five-day series discussing mental health at Notre Dame in recognition of Mental Illness Awareness Week.“The reason I was going home, was so that I could come back.”For students like senior Maggie Skoch, the University’s voluntary withdrawal process can allow them the opportunity to put school temporarily on hold while they work to become healthy enough to return to campus.While students may withdraw for a number of reasons — including financial and academic — Dr. Erica Kelsey, a care consultant in the Division of Student Affairs, said mental health is the “most common reason” a student chooses to take a voluntary withdrawal.“In high school I was diagnosed with [obsessive compulsive disorder] and [generalized anxiety disorder], and I managed those well until my second year of college when I started having anxiety attacks, which were something that I hadn’t experienced before,” Skoch said. “Those were very debilitating, and within a couple weeks I had missed a ton of class, I wasn’t making up class.” … I was kind of a mess. I elected to take a withdrawal maybe two weeks into the semester.”Janice Chung | The Observer Kelsey said students who have elected to withdraw are assigned one of the Division of Student Affairs’s care consultants, who remain their point of contact throughout the withdrawal period and again during the readmission process.“The care consultant works with the student from the time they decide to take a withdrawal,” Kelsey said in an email. “We are able to connect with the student while they are away from the University, answer questions they have about the readmission process, remind them of application due dates and provide general support.“Over the past few years, the care consultants have taken a more active role in supporting the withdrawn and readmitted students by providing the communication mentioned previously and by meeting with the student upon their return and helping them with the transition back to campus life.”Skoch, who withdrew from the University in Sept. 2012, said improvements made to the care consultants program in the last two years have contributed positively to the process since she went through it.“A huge thing that was improved is the care consultants,” Skoch said. “… They walk the journey with [the student], which I think is very crucial and a really excellent part of what Notre Dame has to offer, that a lot of other schools actually don’t offer. We’re one of the only schools to my knowledge that has a CARE program in this capacity. “Once students and their care providers feel that they are ready to return to campus, they can begin the readmission process.Kelsey said the process involves a number of different departments on campus, including admissions and counseling.“All students complete an electronic application submitted to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions,” she said. “… If a student leaves the university for mental health reasons, they are asked to work with University Counseling Center (UCC) as part of the readmission process. A counselor at the UCC will speak with the student’s treatment provider to determine their readiness to return to the University and to determine what continuation of care is needed upon their return.“The goal of the readmission process is to ensure that the student will be successful academically and in a good place in terms of their overall well-being and happiness at the University,” she said.An Aug. 31 memo states the deadlines for readmission applications are Apr. 15 for the fall semester, and Oct. 1 for the spring semester.Junior Mary Mecca, who withdrew in December 2014, returned to campus this semester. She said completing her application four months before she would return to campus was a “daunting” task.“That was the most daunting part when I was in therapy, discussing [applying for readmission],” she said. “What’s the progress that we have made to this point, and would they take me back at this point? I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m going to get better, I don’t know if between Apr. 15 and Aug. 24 when we come back if I’m going to take another dive.”Mecca said, however, she saw both positives and negatives to an April deadline for fall semester readmission.“What was nice about the early deadline was that it forced me to take action as soon as I got home,” she said. “I couldn’t sit around and it forced me to get very serious about my health very quickly.“… However, the system would most certainly benefit from a longitudinal approach to readmission. I made quite a bit of progress between Apr. 15 and June 15 [when she was notified of her readmission], and I cannot imagine that others who may not have been denied did not also make progress worthy of readmission.”Skoch said she thinks withdrawal is often a good decision for students who need it, but encouraged anyone considering it to work with others to make their decision.“If you’re someone who’s considering taking a withdrawal, my first piece of advice is talk to everyone who cares about you,” she said. “Talk to your family, talk to your friends, talk to the resources on campus, talk to a care consultant. Just because you’re seeing a care consultant doesn’t mean you’re withdrawing. If you’re seeing a counselor or a medical professional, talk to them.“Don’t rely solely on your own decision-making, because it’s a very emotionally charged decision. I would never have wanted to make it alone.“If the only thing holding you back is fear of the unknown, fear of what life will look like when you come back, fear of what life will look like when you leave … in most situations I’d say do it,” she said.Mecca said withdrawal does not mean a permanent removal from the University. On the contrary, she said, it allowed her to come back and more fully experience her time in college.“I know I would have benefited from hearing that withdrawal from Notre Dame isn’t the end of the world by any means, but rather, a chance to breathe and find a new and healthier perspective on one’s future,” she said.“I also know that if I hadn’t withdrawn and gone through the process of readmission, I would not be the person I am today. It allowed me to reflect, and ultimately realize that I should be able to enjoy life and strive to do something meaningful with my life.”Tags: Irish State of Mind, Mental Illness Awareness Week, withdrawal
It all began with a spring break trip and a travel video edited with iMovie.Saint Mary’s junior Alyssa Jones utilized her passion for photography and videography to create a business in 2015 upon which she plans to build her future.Jones began her business, L Film & Photography, after an old friend’s mother reached out to her about being the photographer at a wedding, she said. In the three years since then, Jones has taken senior, couple and maternity photos along with creating short films for companies and weddings. “I did my first wedding in either August or September of 2015, and that’s when I started getting very serious about it,” Jones said. “I made a name for my company, and I was like, ‘OK, this is going to be a thing. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.’ Later in the year, I started getting more wedding clients, and now I have 10 weddings booked for this next year. It’s really exciting. It’s like it’s my job, but it’s so much fun. I end up working 14-hour days, but I just have the most fun. It just makes me happy. Weddings are such a good environment. It’s doing what I love.”Her passion led to an opportunity to photograph 574 Dream Team, the opening act for a recent Waka Flocka Flame concert. This experience inspired Jones to pursue more concert work, including the upcoming Chainsmokers concert during Idea Week. Though it hasn’t been confirmed that Jones will be shooting the concert, she said has high hopes for the opportunity.“I’ve been in contact with the concert promoter,” Jones said. “He put me on the media request list. He said it’s likely, but it’s not official that I’m going to be shooting for them. I don’t want to be like, ‘Yeah, I’m shooting for The Chainsmokers,’ when I truly don’t know if I am. I’m putting in all this work in order to do it because I feel like it would be an amazing opportunity.”Jones said this work will aid in the establishment of her company to lead to bigger opportunities in the future.“Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy,” she said. “You know, I work, I pay for school mostly by myself. My two other jobs I kind of have to have. My business thrives more in the summer than it does right now because my main business is weddings, and no one is really getting married right now. … It’s my main source of income. It makes me really happy, and at the end of the day, it’s really worth it because it’s what I want to do. I’m hoping [by] starting so early I will kind of have established myself a little more once I graduate and be able to take it to Chicago or wherever I’d like to take it.”Jones said she wishes to take her passions across the globe and create documentaries that will showcase the people she meets.“I really want to travel and make documentaries about different cultures around the world,” she said. “That’s something I’ve always been super passionate about. It’s something I’ve considered even before I really got into being serious about video. … I’ve always wanted to make documentaries or be a part of documentaries in some way. Traveling with it is something I’d love to do.”For now, Jones said her favorite project was creating a video that showcased the work of Western Michigan University fashion students last Sunday.“I was happy to showcase work done by other students because as a student I know how it feels,” Jones said. “You’re working to get to where you want to be, but you’re not quite there, and you’re not sure if your work is good enough, stuff like that. I was happy to showcase how hard they worked all year on their clothing lines. … It was super fun to showcase work from other students while doing something that I love.”Tags: entrepreneurship, photography, saint mary’s, Student business, Weddings