Slack Line and Sports Psychology

Students doing their Sports Psychology classroom presentation on EXTREME SPORTS decided to involve their classmates in a little exercise outside of St. Ed's yesterday afternoon at the beginning of class.  We have been discussing the psychological reasons why some people are so willing to put themselves (and in some cases their lives) at risk by participating in activities that others would NEVER attempt.  The five students who set this all up obtained a SLACK LINE from a friend and strung this line up between two trees outside in hopes that they could get some of their classmates to "attempt" to walk this slack line.  Some did but most didn't which then led to a GREAT conversation in class.  Some who didn't are athletes who knew that if they injured themselves, their coaches would "kill them" as they put it.  Others just simply said they were scared.  It was a great discussion because some of the students are clearly fascinated by extreme sports.  They then led a discussion about why WE seem so fascinated with watching extreme sports - is it adrenaline, a death wish, a life wish that pushes people?  They showed a video of a young female surfer who lost her arm to a shark at age 16 but returned to surfing three weeks later and another video of Aron Ralston, the young man who had to literally saw his own arm off to escape from a climbing accident.  I was very proud of the students as they challenged themselves and each other to present a great class.  We will continue that discussion tomorrow when we look at why Red Bull sponsors so many of these extreme sports and ask the question:  how far is too far??????

Resources on campus + some foliage

Yesterday afternoon for my Sports Psychology class, I had students show up at the Hall of Fame Room in the Tarrant Recreational Center as I had asked three folks from the Athletic Department to speak with my students about their positions at the College.  Ann Dwyer is shown here talking about her responsibilities as Facilities Director and the Supervisor of almost 60 workstudy students.  She has to work with each individual student and prides herself in getting to know each of them personally.  She expressed how proud of them she is as they have not let her down once and either show up for work assignments, contact her directly, or make sure someone else can take their shift.  She made the connections with Psychology as she has to understand student needs, the MANY different personalities and has to take into account that each student is a unique person.  She later gave us a tour of the new Varsity Team Weight Room that just opened in September.  She also has to work closely with all of the coaches of our 21 varsity teams in order to make things run smoothly in a complex that is used constantly.  Josh Kessler is our Director of Athletic Communications and Harrison Antonioni is an intern in his office.  Both of these folks were in my Sports Psychology class in the past so could relate what they do (produce press releases for ALL student-athletes' hometown newspapers, publicize results of our athletic contests and put that information up on all of the social media students use, deal with local media to announce our schedules and successes) to the field of Psychology.  I asked my students to share THEIR reactions to seeing or hearing about their athletic achievements in their hometown newspapers.  A couple of the students shared that it was really nice to hear from folks at home who had read about them and what they were doing up here in Vermont at SMC.  It was also nice to give both Josh and Harrison some good feedback. 

 You can see my shadow as I took this picture this past week as I got ready to head onto the Indian Brook Reservoir and another quiet and peaceful kayaking adventure.  The leaves are just beginning to turn and it looks like foliage will be excellent.  Kayaking is such a great way to not only exercise, but also relax.  I am fortunate to live in a place where I actually get to do this a LOT.  Last year I kayaked into the second week of December and, yes, there was snow on the ground but the Reservoir had not frozen yet and I just added another layer and stayed warm.

Meetings today - the Athletic Advisory Council meets this afternoon and I always look forward to working with that group.  As Chair, I get to talk with everyone as we plan the meetings and we really value the input we get from the two other faculty members, the three students and a good variety of administrators on the Council.  I will be announcing this afternoon that Saint Michael's College now has a chapter of the National Honor Society for Student-Athletes - Chi Alpha Sigma.  We are only the second college/university in the State of Vermont so will be known as the Beta Chapter.  Student-athletes must have attained a 3.7 overall grade point average, have completed two years of varsity competition and be nominated by their coaches.  This is another way to recognize the ACADEMIC achievement of our student-athletes who make us proud of their achievements both in the classroom and on the playing field.  But don't tell anyone yet as I won't announce this until this afternoon :)

As always, take care, be well and please keep all of the members of our military and our veterans in your thoughts and prayers.

Dave

SMC's Student Association is the BEST.

Last night before our SA weekly meeting began, I spoke with Lauren Barone, Secretary of Communications and Michael Fay, President of the SA and asked if they would share a video with the SA during the meeting.  October is Anti-Bullying Month and I had seen an amazing video from Facebook that I thought everyone should see.  Eric Jaukkuri is the Co-Secretary of Programming and he and I have spoken about presenting workshops and/or informational sessions for the campus around the topic of bullying during October.   Eric was bullied as a kid and he knows that this is an issue that I feel passionate about.  The three Officers of the SA immediately agreed and so during the beginning of last night's meeting, Eric showed the video of a television anchor woman who had received an email which made rude and disparaging comments about her weight - HER response is amazing and as our students watched this last night I was so proud of what OUR students do to address a wide variety of issues which confront young people today.  The SA challenges, encourages, educates and provides a space for great discussion and dialogue on so many topics and, in my opinion (not that I am biased after 30 years of working with this Student Association) they are THE BEST....  I suspect that none of you reading this will take the time to actually input the URL listed below but I don't know how to input it so all you have to do is to click on the URL - but I do hope that if you see it on YouTube or on Facebook or on Twitter, that you will copy it and spread the words that this amazing woman used in her response to a thoughtless and cruel viewer.


http://xfinity.comcast.net/video/anchor-turns-fat-insult-into-empowering-message/2286176210/Comcast/2285995670/

Classes are excellent, students are working hard and seemingly enjoying the challenges I throw their way on what seems to them, like a daily basis - THAT makes me very happy....

Take care, be well, and please, as always, keep all of the members of our military and our veterans in your thoughts and prayers.

Dave

Student Association's SA Day-Away - Burlington's Mayor

Senior Eric Jaukkuri - Co-Secretary of Programming stands with Director of Student Activities Grace Kelly and Marilyn Cormier, Director of Government and Community Relations in Contois Auditorium this afternoon just prior to a talk to the Student Association by Burlington's young and dynamic new Mayor Miro Weinberger.  The second picture has the Mayor and Michael Fay, the College's Student Association President.  The third picture is of all of the members of the E-Board and the Student Senate posing with the Mayor.  And, YES, he does look like one of our students :)

The Mayor spoke of his own internship in Washington, D.C. in the office of Senator AND SMC alum, Patrick Leahy.  He encouraged our students to get involved and to take advantage of the many opportunities in local government.  He is a very impressive young, new politician and it was wonderful of him to share his Saturday afternoon speaking with our students and answering their questions.  One of our students asked him about the plight of the homeless in this area and of the issues surrounding how our society AND our government can deal with the mental health issues of those who are less fortunate and who may find themselves homeless.  It was a GREAT question and I was, as usual, very proud of our students for not only their questions, but for how well they responded to the Mayor - Well done Student Association.

take care, be well and PLEASE, PLEASE, keep all of the members of our military and all of our veterans in your thoughts and prayers.

Dave

THIS is why I love to teach - - - -

Yesterday was one of those days in teaching that reinforces my LOVE for this profession.  My Sports Psychology class had to select their presentation topics for the semester - they have to work in teams of four and so yesterday they chose topics, established teams and selected dates for their presentations.  For them, it was chaos, for me it was ORGANIZED chaos where they were forced to work together, make connections with members of their teams, compromise, choose tasks within each team and then work with me to establish timelines - as I said, chaos for them - ORGANIZED and planned chaos for me.  One student commented "you love this don't you?" and I smiled and responded YES.  We then began looking at why some people are perfectly comfortable being GREEN CIRCLE skiers and others DOUBLE BLACK DIAMONDS - it was a fascinating discussion about how neurotransmitters may play a role in this and how the Central Nervous System levels of stimulation let one take great chances and another be happy with taking few chances.  We watched a YouTube video on cliff jumping and then moved on to even more extreme sports - check out wing suit base jumping on YouTube - watching the expressions on their faces as they watched seemingly sane people jump off of very high cliffs dressed in a wing suit and then FLY at 100 miles an hour right next to walls of stone left some with expressions of fear and voicing "I will NEVER do that" and others with looks of joy at seeing something that really speaks to them.  We processed all of those different reactions and they left the classroom talking, energized and saying "I never knew that before." - THOSE words warm any professor's heart....

My Theories of Counseling class met next and we talked about the chapter they had read for yesterday. After going through the PowerPoint presentation I had prepared based on the chapter on Medication(s) we watched the PBS Frontline show from 2008 entitled The Medicated Child - wow - each time I show this to my classes, they have a visceral reaction to scenes with 4 and 6 year old children who are on 8 to 11 different medications.  Since most of these students are also in a Practicum class, they will all have "clients" who are on some form of medication so it is important that they do some critical thought and analysis of their OWN views on medication.  Much like the students in Sports Psychology, these students also left the classroom talking with each other, energized and all riled up - again, things that make teaching so rewarding -

As I said, things that remind me why I LOVE to teach, even having done so since January of 1966......

Take care, be well, and please keep all of the members of our military in your thoughts and prayers as the War in Afghanistan continues to take the lives of OUR soldiers.

Dave

Practicum and the Psych Club

Just finished meeting with my Practicum class on this beautiful Labor Day.  Everyone (16 students) is placed and several have already begun their interships - others are waiting for their background checks to be completed.  One of my Class of 2012 Practicum students has an interview tomorrow for a full-time job at the same place she had her internship - she will rock it. 

I meet with the officers of our Psychology Club in half an hour - good folks with great ideas.  We will be contacting all of our majors/minors to see what things they want us to present this year.  The Psych Club is funded by the Student Association and has done a great job of raising awareness over the past couple of years.  We will have Chris Clary from Career Development come to talk about Graduate School and hopefully have Brian Cain, who is a Sports Psychologist come to speak - all of the Club activities are open to the entire campus - Brian spoke to almost 80 students the last time we brought him on campus.  The Club also collaborates with Psi Chi which is the National Honor Society of Psychology so this year looks like it will be a good one.

Take care, be well and please keep all of the members of our military in your thoughts and prayers - there still IS a War in Afghanistan..........

Dave

Orientation completed and classes begin

Yesterday morning we completed this year's Orientation for new students.  The picture below is a picture I took of all of the Orientation Leaders and in the front is Grace Kelly, Director of Student Activities and the driving force behind making what could be a difficult transition into a much more successful one. Grace is ably assisted by a wonderful group of Orientation Leaders who comprise the O-Board - they work for almost an entire year to ensure a successful Orientation - the picture above is of Grace and most of the members of the O-Board. From new students and Orientation Leader alike, the consensus is that this year's Orientation was one of the best EVER.  With construction disrupting the usual flow of families and students into our Residence Halls and making their way to the variety of activities sponsored by Academics and Student Life, it COULD have been a disaster.  Great planning and collaboration between all aspects of the College resulted instead in a very successful Orientation - Well done everyone.

Classes began this morning and I meet with my Practicum class this afternoon.  These are all senior Psychology majors who will be spending this entire academic year together in this class.  They will be out in our community for 8 - 10 hours a week and back in class with me for two and a half hours each week.  This course provides them with supervision on-site and a chance to process all they are doing with their peers in this class.  Tomorrow I meet with Sports Psychology and Theories of Counseling.  Even after 46 years of teaching - YUP, 46 years - I still am excited for classes :)

Take care, be well, and please keep all of the members of our military in your thoughts and prayers -

Dave