Recent grad Nicky Hess ’13 knows the importance of managing her time. After all, she spent her entire college career carefully balancing her two passions: nursing and basketball.
In addition to her role as starting point-guard for the Messiah College women’s basketball team, who made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament this season, Hess managed a full course load as a nursing student—complete with clinical practice, site visits and time-intensive labs. Read the rest of this entry »
Todd Bosma ’96
Portland, Oregon
Director of game operations and events for the Portland Trail Blazers
From the moment a fan pulls into the parking lot of the Rose Garden to the moment they leave the door, director of game operations and events for the Portland Trail Blazers Todd Bosma ’96 is in charge of making sure visitors have a memorable night at the game.
“I am responsible for everything that goes on during a game besides the five guys on the court dribbling,” says Bosma. “It’s challenging and a bit chaotic, but I absolutely love my job.” Read the rest of this entry »
Rolando Vega Bridgewater, N.J. Film and Media Arts
Combining his creative spirit, passion for technology and love of film, Rolando Vega ’13 created a professional-quality short film for his senior honors project that culminated his academic experience at Messiah and prepared him for a future career in film. Read the rest of this entry »
As Messiah College’s first-ever waste diversion coordinator, Adam Arditi ’13 works to create a more sustainable campus each day by picking up pre- and post-consumer food waste from Lottie Nelson Dining Hall and pre-consumer food waste from the Union Café and transporting the waste to campus composting piles. Read the rest of this entry »
Grace Lankford ’11
Health and Exercise Science alum
Hummelstown, Pa.
Featured on the cover of the summer 2011 issue of The Bridge, health and exercise science alum Grace Lankford ’11 continues to pursue her love of photography in addition to her job as a wellness instructor.
Though she focused her major course work in the sciences, Lankford broadened her horizons by taking many art electives during her time at Messiah. Read the rest of this entry »
Jeff ’08 and Emily (Barcklow) Mitchell ’08
Owners of Lancaster Cupcake
Lancaster, Pa.
What did one alumna do while waiting for her nursing license to transfer from one state to another? She baked. Then she started a cupcake business with her husband, which led to an appearance on the Food Network’s hit television show “Cupcake Wars.”
Lisa (Zaleta) Williams ’91 Authorand Licensed Clinical Social Worker Smyrna, De.
Lisa (Zaleta) Williams ’91 has always enjoyed working with children. As a mother of three and a licensed clinical social worker who works with middle school students, she is improving the lives of children and teens every day.
In addition to her social work job, Williams—who graduated from Messiah with a degree in Spanish before pursuing her master’s degree in social work from Temple University—also enjoys writing psycho-educational and advocacy pieces on mental health issues for Hispanic newspapers. Read the rest of this entry »
Director of Human Resources for the Boston Red Sox
Boston, Mass.
If someone told Mike Danubio ’95 when he was in college that he would be the director of human resources for the Boston Red Sox, he would not have believed it. But with a Messiah business degree in hand and a passion for human resources and talent acquisition, that is exactly where he is today—playing a key leadership role in the hiring, employee training and employee relations for the front office operations of the team in Boston, Mass. Read the rest of this entry »
Innovative lesson plan helps alumna land first teaching job
Elizabeth Arnold ’12
Teacher at the Alliance for Progress Charter School
Philadelphia, Pa.
For fourth grade teacher and Messiah alumna, Elizabeth Arnold ’12, learning to embrace technology played a vital role in helping her secure her current job. Just months after graduating, Arnold was hired as a full-time teacher at the Alliance for Progress Charter School in North Philadelphia, where she uses innovative technology to bring life to her lesson plans.
As a student at Messiah, Arnold joined a pilot program through the College that loaned students iPads to use during their student teaching experiences. She quickly learned the role technology could play in the classroom.
Amber (Sollenberger) Kane ’07
Artist and art teacher
Mechanicsburg, Pa.
Much like the intricate scarves she weaves on her loom, art education graduate Amber (Sollenberger) Kane ’07 follows her own pattern as an artist. What began as an elective weaving course at Messiah now has led Kane to combine her love of art with a passion for teaching with people of all ages. Read the rest of this entry »
Ed Lanza ’89 Attorney and member of the Governor’s Advisory Commission for Latino Affairs Harrisburg, Pa.
An attorney, activist and advocate, Ed Lanza ’89 strives to address the needs in his community one day at a time.
Born in Honduras, Lanza moved to the United States as a teenager. Still relatively new to the U.S. when he came to Messiah College as a politics major, Lanza became involved with the International Student Association (ISA) and enjoyed the camaraderie of connecting with other students who were making the same transition.
“Although I had been in the U.S. for a few years, it was great to be part of an international group,” said Lanza. “We commiserated with each other about our new experience and adjusted to the change together.”
After college, Lanza began working as a clerk at a law firm in New York City that was seeking someone who was bilingual. Originally, Lanza had no plans to become a lawyer, but following his work as a clerk and paralegal, he returned to central Pennsylvania to attend the Penn State Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle. Read the rest of this entry »
Coordinator of Special Services and School Psychologist at Northern Lebanon School District
Ordained Minister at Mohrsville Church of the Brethren
Mohrsville, Pa.
Launched by a B.S. in psychology degree from Messiah College, alumnus Chad Kinsey ’96 has built a rewarding, successful vocation by practicing what he preaches. Literally. Read the rest of this entry »
Like any international student who attends college thousands of miles away from family and the familiar, Messiah College junior and international business major Dorottya “Dori” Gyori ’13 defines home differently.
Born in Biatorbagy, Hungary, in 1990, Gyori discovered a second home in Grantham in 2008 when she accepted a freshman spot on the Messiah Falcons’ women’s basketball team. A 6’2 highly-recruited forward during her senior year at Mechanicsburg Area High School in Mechanicsburg, Pa., Gyori had earned significant attention from Division 1 athletic programs across the U.S. Read the rest of this entry »
Each August, familiar hello-goodbye scenes unfold across the Messiah College campus on Move-In Day. For students, the next four years will include new experiences, friendships and paths toward adulthood. Parents, too, find themselves standing at the crossroads of beginnings and endings during this time.
First-year nursing student Lindsay Koach ’15 and her mom Peggy, the editorial assistant in the Office of Marketing and Public Relations, recently sat down at The Falcon to discuss this transition that a family experiences as a student leaves home for college. Read the rest of this entry »
Director for the Philadelphia Eagles Drumline
Music Teacher/Band Director
Norristown Area School District
Norristown, Pa.
Following a musical muse can take you to some unexpected places.
After her Messiah College graduation in 1978, alumna Vicki (Gilmour) Blum’s passion for music first took her to a Navajo reservation in New Mexico where she taught music to Native American junior-senior high school children. Now, as the director of the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles new professional drumline, Blum, a lifelong fan of marching band music, spends her Sunday afternoons on Lincoln Financial Field, where her skilled percussionists entertain 70,000 football fans.
Children’s Tale Follows McBoo, a Galapagos Bird Trying to Fit In
A funny thing happened to Dwayne Magee, director of college press and postal services, on his way to earning an arts management degree at Messiah. The part-time sophomore student and College employee for the past six years became a published author, thanks to his in-class fictional creation–a blue footed bird named Solly McBoo. What began as a simple classroom assignment for Magee’s spring 2010 Created and Called for Community course has evolved into his first published book. Read the rest of this entry »
Attorney and Partner at Gager, Emerson, Rickart, Bower and Scalzo, LLC
Brookfield, Conn.
Faith and intellect. Discipline and imagination. Humility and aspiration. Students at Messiah College are regularly challenged to explore how two seemingly opposing entities can coexist and forge even greater strength when merged.
Peter Scalzo ’84, a business administration major and bible minor, can add two more:
Cancer and joy. Suffering and purpose. Since his cancer diagnosis in 2005, the 49-year-old alumnus has seen God use a six-year battle with cancer to not only solidify his faith, but to open new doors of ministry and service to individuals whose lives also have been similarly turned upside down by the disease.
For his final spring break, Steve Frankenfield ’11 journeyed to the rugged Cumberland Valley of Tennessee.
Again.
For three out of four spring breaks of his Messiah College career, the 22-year-old adventure education major has participated in the Agapé Center’s service trip to Mountain T.O.P. (Tennessee Outreach Project), an interdenominational nonprofit ministry that serves impoverished rural families in the scenic—yet isolated—Cumberland Valley.
For Joanna Matlak, circulation desk evening supervisor in Messiah’s Murray Library, each night spent working among the towering rows of books offers a quiet reminder of the first 33 years of her life spent behind the Iron Curtain in Communist-run Poland, where the free exchange of ideas and expression were mere words on a page.
“Everyday in my work at Messiah, I check out books to College students that were forbidden by the Communist regime in Poland,” she says. “These books, such as those written by George Orwell and Vaclav Havel, for example, would have had to be printed and distributed in the underground press. Under the totalitarian communist dictatorship we endured, you would have suffered terribly for possessing these books.”
Her long years under totalitarian Communism have fostered in Matlak a passion against injustice which informs her daily vocation within the Messiah community. Read the rest of this entry »
Like concentric circles in a stirred pond, a single gesture of gracious generosity affects multiple lives in its wake. One such selfless act involving soccer, suffering and an unexpected gift recently rippled through the Messiah College community, as a tangible display of servant leadership.
Just a few weeks after Messiah senior Geoff Pezon ’11 scored the winning goal in the 2010 NCAA Division III men’s soccer championship game, he offered a key assist to a seriously ill Messiah professor. Read the rest of this entry »
Nicky Hess
